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Reproduced from Harper's Bazar 

DOWAGER EMPRESS OF CHINA 



THE CRISIS IN CHINA 



BY 

GEORGE B. SMYTH ; REV. GILBERT 
REID ; CHARLES JOHNSTON ; JOHN 
BARRETT^; ROBERT E. LEWIS 
ARCHIBi^D R. COLQUHOUN; M. 
MIKHAILOFF; REAR-ADMIRAL 
LORD CHARLES BERESFORD ; HIS 
EXCELLENCY WU TING- 
FANG; DEMETRIUS C. BOULGER 
GENERAL JAMES H. WILSON 
THE RT. HON. SIR CHAS. W. DILKE 

Reprinted by permission from 
The North American Review 

WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 




NEW YORK AND LONDON 

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

I 900 



\ 



3300G 



Library of Conqr©«« 

Two Copies Received 
AUG 101900 

Copyright entry 
SECOND COPY. 

Delivered to 

ORDER DIVISION, 
AUG 20 1900 



n 



S22i 



Copyright, 1900, by The North American I^evibw. 



All rights reserved. 



CONTENTS 



PACK 

Causes of Anti-Foreign Feeling in China .... 3 
By George B. Smyth, President of the Anglo-China Col- 
lege, Foochow. 

The Powers and the Partition of China .... 35 
By Rev. Gilbert Reid, D.D., President International 
Institute of China, Peking. 

The Struggle for Reform in China 53 

By Charles Johnston, Bengal Civil Service (Retired). 

Political Possibilities in China 79 

By John Barrett, Late United States Minister to Siam. 

The Gathering of the Storm 95 

By Robert E. Lewis. 

The Far Eastern Crisis 109 

By Archibald R. Colquhoun. 

The Great Siberian Railway 137 

By M. Mikhailoff. 

China and the Powers 169 

By Rear-Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, R.N., C.B. 

Mutual Helpfulness Between China and the United 

States 189 

By His Excellency Wu Ting-Fang, Chinese Minister to 
United States. 

iii 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

America's Share in a Partition of China . . . . 215 
By Demetrius C. Boulger. 

America's Interests in China 239 

By General James H. Wilson, U.S.V.A. 

The American Policy in China 265 

By The Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Bart, M.P. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



DOWAGER EMPRESS OF CHINA 

MAP OF THE EMPIRE OF CHINA 

EMPEROR OF CHINA « 

THE TAKU FORTS 

THE GREAT SOUTH GATE, PEKING 

THE UNITED STATES CONSULATE, PEKING . . . 

CONSULATE HILL, PEKING 

A COMPANY OF CHINESE INFANTRY 

VICTORIA ROAD, EUROPEAN QUARTER, TIEN-TSIN 

VIEW FROM THE TARTAR CITY WALL, PEKING . 

A PANORAMA OF VLADIVOSTOK 

M. S. PICHON, FRENCH MINISTER 

SIR CLAUDE MACDONALD, BRITISH MINISTER . 

EDWIN H. CONGER, UNITED STATES MINISTER 

CHINESE MINISTER TO THE UNITED STATES, WU 
TING-FANG 

LI HUNG CHANG 

MAP OF A FORECAST OF THE PARTITION OF CHINA 

EDWIN H. CONGER, UNITED STATES MINISTER TO 
PEKING 

MINISTER conger's CART, AND LADIES OF THE LE- 
GATION 

V 



Frontispiece 
Facing p. 6 
12 
38 

54 

68 

82 

98 

112 

130 

142 

172 



** 196 
" 202 

** 216 



242 

254 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING 
IN CHINA. 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING 
IN CHINA. 

What are the causes of the present anti- 
foreign outburst in North China, and what are 
the reasons for the bitter anti-foreign spirit which 
prevails throughout the Empire, and which is 
kept from springing into universal action only by 
the firmness of some enlightened and far-seeing 
Viceroys ? I wish to answer both these questions, 
and in the order in which I have here stated them ; 
though it would probably be more logical to 
answer the more general question first, as the 
present situation is to a large extent but a spe- 
cially malignant outbreak of a disorder which 
infects the whole Chinese system. Nevertheless, 
as the terrible crisis in North China is the subject 
of more immediate interest, it will not be in- 
appropriate to consider it before taking up the 
larger subject which the second question presents. 
In discussing these questions, my chief desire is 
to be entirely fair; and yet it may happen that 



4 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

some will think me too warm an advocate of the 
Chinese. I shall, indeed, have to present the 
Chinese side, since no one can justly write of 
the antagonism of China toward foreigners with- 
out showing how large a share the foreigners 
themselves have had in producing it. The subject 
is on that account not a pleasant one for us of the 
West to think of; for, in studying it, we shall 
see much to be ashamed of, and find that much 
of the prejudice and hatred of Western men and 
Western institutions of which we so bitterly com- 
plain in the Chinese is due to ourselves, to the 
way in which we introduced ourselves among 
them, and to the way in which we have often 
since treated them. Western injustice toward 
the East is the cause of much of the Eastern 
hatred of the West. Nay, more, it will be seen 
that, when we were moved by the purest and 
loftiest motives, we did not succeed in making 
ourselves welcome. Through ignorance or zeal 
or the coincidence of unhappy accidents, our very 
benevolence has itself been misunderstood and 
offensive. 

The first question, as to the causes of the pres- 
ent anti-foreign outbreak in North China, may 
be put in another form : Who are the Boxers, and 
how and why have they become what they are? 
For these people are everywhere considered the 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. 5 

cause of the present disturbance, and the chief 
agents in its murderous crusade against for- 
eigners. 

The Boxers are a patriotic secret society; but, 
as in the case of all other such associations in 
China, their origin and history are difficult to 
trace. Though it is but a year since the society 
began to attract public attention by its depreda- 
tions against foreigners, it is said to have been 
in existence for several years. It seems at first 
to have been partly an athletic association, and 
partly a kind of mutual protective organization, 
for defense against the roving bands of robbers 
which sometimes infest the province of Shan- 
tung; and it was called by the name which has 
since become infamous, the '' Righteous Harmo- 
nious Fist," translated for brevity by the short 
and expressive word '' Boxers.'' It is certain 
that it showed no special hostility toward the ^ 
native Christians, and gave no trouble to mission- 
aries or other foreigners. The question, then, is 
how to account for the change which made of 
this society of men, associated to oppose the law- 
lessness of freebooters, the most cruel and blood- 
thirsty anti-foreign organization in the history 
of China. The reasons must be sought in the 
recent history of Shan-tung, and they are not 
hard to discover. 



6 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

Up to the fall of 1897, Shan-tung enjoyed an 
excellent reputation for its treatment of foreign- 
ers and native Christians; indeed, there were 
more Christians in that province than in any 
other in the Empire, except Fuh-keen. On the 
1st of November of that year, however, there was 
a riot in which two German Catholic missionaries 
were brutally murdered, and Germany promptly 
seized upon the crime as a pretext for what it had 
long contemplated, the seizure of a portion of 
Chinese territory. On the 14th, Admiral Diedrichs 
landed troops at Kiao Chow, and negotiations were 
entered upon for the formal cession to Germany* 
of that which she had already seized. On the 6th 
of the following March, a treaty was signed at 
Peking by which the country round about the 
Bay of Kiao Chow, as far inland as the neighbor- 
ing hills, was ceded to the German Empire for 
ninety-nine years; the Governor of Shan-tung 
was dismissed, six other high officials removed, 
an indemnity of 3,000 taels paid, and a promise 
made to build three '' expiatory'' chapels. Ger- 
many obtained in addition a concession for two 
railways in the province, and the right to open 
mines within a region of territory twenty kilo- 
metres wide along them. These were hard terms, 
but that which was most bitterly resented was 
the seizure of territory. This high-handed act 



Stanford's Geographical £stabf 



rd Charles Beresford 




MAP OF THE EMPIRE QF CHINA 
; n s e from a colored map n The Break Up of China by Lo d Charles Beresford 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. 7 

worked an ominous change in the attitude of the 
people toward foreigners, and especially Ger- 
mans. It was not safe for Germans in small 
companies to travel in the interior, and three who 
later unwisely did so w^ere attacked, though they 
fortunately escaped with their lives. To punish 
the perpetrators of what the German Government 
chose to consider another unprovoked crime, the 
commander of Kiao Chow immediately sent 
troops to the scene of the attack, and they burned 
down two villages. This harsh and indiscriminate 
retaliation, in which innocent suffered as well as 
guilty, inflamed* the people to madness, and many 
foreigners predicted serious results. These were 
not long in coming. A bitter anti-Christian, 
anti-foreign spirit showed itself throughout the 
province, which was later intensified by the Im- 
perial Decree of March 15th of last year, issued 
on the demand of France, conferring practically 
official rank on Roman Catholic bishops and 
missionaries. The position of equality with 
Viceroys and Governors thus given to the bishops, 
and equality with provincial treasurers, provin- 
cial judges, taotais and prefects given to the 
various orders of priests, together with the right 
of interview without the mediation of consul or 
minister, gave the Roman Catholics an influence 
of w^hich the people had good reason to believe 



8 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

they would not be slow to avail themselves. In 
lawsuits between their adherents and non-Chris- 
tian people, the latter had, or thought they had, 
no chance; and, as in other provinces, there was 
general complaint of the constant interference of 
the priests in litigation. 

Enraged at the injustice thus perpetrated, 
seeing in the missionaries and the Germans the 
causes of the country's humiliation, and in the 
conduct of the latter especially the beginning of 
an attempt by the foreigners to seize the province 
and, finally, the whole Empire, the Boxers .began 
the series of crimes which have since made them 
infamous, preached a patriotic, anti-Christian, 
anti-foreign propaganda, and resolved to drive 
from the country the intruders, and all that they 
represented. They also made claims to strange 
spiritual powers to influence the public. They 
practised hypnotism, and the effects which they 
thus produced on individuals awed the multitude 
into a belief in their possession of mysterious, 
supernatural powers. It came in time to be be- 
lieved that they could make those who joined 
them impervious to the bullets of foreigners. 
The " Boxer spirit" movement, as it accordingly 
came to be called, spread like wildfire, and led to 
frightful excesses, the burning of churches, the 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. 9 

slaughter of native Christians, the murder of 
missionaries. 

Such, in brief outhne, is the history of the rise 
of the Boxer movement in Shan-tung. But how 
did it come to spread till it covered the whole 
province, invaded the metropolitan province of 
Chi-li, took possession of the capital itself, and 
now holds within its grasp the persons, alive or 
dead we know not, of the ministers of the great 
Powers of the West ? There is but one answer — 
by the connivance of the officials, by the treachery 
of the Governor of Shan-tung, acting under direct 
orders from the Empress Dowager herself. Had 
this wretched and cruel woman been so minded, 
and had she so ordered, the movement could have 
been crushed long before it became dangerous ; but 
she refused even to attempt to put it down, and 
degraded any official who was honest enough to 
oppose it and protect the Christians and foreign- 
ers within his jurisdiction. And all because she 
thought she saw in the strength of the uprising, 
in its fierce fanaticism, in its murderous hostility 
to foreigners the means of accomplishing the 
most cherished ambition, both of herself and of 
the bigoted crew of Manchu reactionaries who 
surrounded her, the expulsion from China of all 
foreigners and of all the ideas, religious, social 



10 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

and political, which foreigners represent. That 
this charge is not groundlessly made is shown by 
the simple fact that Yuan-Shih-kai, the Governor 
of Shan-tung, and his predecessor, Yu-Hsieu, 
under both of whom the Boxer uprising has 
grown, were her own appointees, acting under 
her immediate orders. The North China Herald, 
the best informed and most ably edited foreign 
paper in China, in its issue of June 6th, after 
showing how Governor Yu, because of his intense 
hatred of foreigners and all Chinese who had 
anything to do with them, gave open help and 
encouragement to the Boxers, for which his dis- 
missal was demanded by one of the foreign 
ministers, says: 

" There can be no question about the Boxers having been 
encouraged by the government, because Yu-Hsieu, their 
patron, after having been recalled to Peking from Shan- 
tung, was specially honored by the Empress Dowager, and 
given the Governorship of Shan-se. Yuan-Shih-kai, the 
new Governor of Shan-tung, could easily have put down 
the Boxers when he first went to Chinanfu, the provincial 
capital, but he was not allowed to." 

Who prevented him? Who could have pre- 
vented him but the Empress Dowager, to whom 
he owed his appointment, and whose servant he 
was? These two men, Yu and Yuan, allowed 
the fiendish work to go on, because she wished it ; 
at a word from her, they would have crushed it. 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. ii 

Again, the conduct of which she is here accused 
is in complete accord with her course ever since, 
in September of 1898, she deposed the unhappy 
Emperor for his too zealous devotion to reform, 
and took the power of the throne into her own 
hands. Since then, she has seized and beheaded 
six leaders of the Reform party, banished many 
more, and dismissed from ofifice every official, not 
too powerful to be touched, who has shown the 
least sympathy with the new order. Kang-Yu- 
Wei, the chief adviser of the Emperor, and the 
head and front of the movement, she has pursued 
with implacable vengeance; as recently as the 
14th of last February, she offered a reward of 
a hundred thousand taels for his capture, alive 
or dead. 

That the Boxer outbreak has thus grown to 
its present terrible proportions largely through 
her support, given both openly and in secret, is 
not a matter of inference, but of positive knowl- 
edge. If, as late cablegrams report, she has herself 
fallen a victim to its fury, and has been made 
a prisoner in the palace, or been poisoned, by the 
Boxer leader, Tsai-Yi, the Prince of Tuan, one 
of her special favorites — a man to whom, by a 
decree of January 31st last, she granted two extra 
steps in official rank and a eulogistic tablet written 
by the imperial hand, and whom by a decree of 



12 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

the 7th of March she made Second President of 
the Imperial Clan Court — it only shows how well 
her ministers have learned the lesson which she 
taught them. The fury of even her hatred of 
foreigners was too mild for some of her favorites. 
If she seems to have shrunk from the horrors to 
which her own infamous course has led, they 
shrink at nothing, not even at the attempted 
wholesale butchery of the foreign ministers them- 
selves. But the guilt of the movement, with its 
awful record of crimes, the widespread destruc- 
tion of property, the massacre of native Chris- 
tians, the murder of foreigners, the whole terrible 
tragedy now being enacted in the North, is chiefly 
hers. 

It is time now to consider the second question 
proposed at the head of this article : What are the 
reasons for the bitter, anti-foreign spirit which 
prevails throughout China? The subject is par- 
ticularly important, inasmuch as this feeling ap- 
pears to be of comparatively recent origin. The 
Chinese have not always shown the hostility to 
foreigners which so generally characterizes them 
now. Colquhoun, in his *' China in Transforma- 
tion," says : 

" Before the advent of the Manchus China maintained 
constant relations with the countries of Asia: traders from 
Arabia, Persia, and India trafBcked in Chinese ports and 




Reproduced from Harper's Weekly 

EMPEROR OF CHINA 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. 13 

passed into the interior. The tablet of Sian Fu shows that 
missionaries from the West were propagating the Christian 
religion in the eighth century; in the thirteenth, Marco 
Polo was not only cordially received, but held office in the 
Empire, and at that time the Christian religious ceremonies 
were tolerated at Peking, where there was an Archbishop. 
To the close of the last Chinese dynasty (1644), the Jesuit 
missionaries were well received and treated at the capital ; 
and, as Hue remarks, the first Tartar Emperors merely 
tolerated what they found existing. This would seem to 
show conclusively that the Chinese did not formerly have 
the aversion to foreigners which is usually assumed.'' 

How are we to account for the change? No 
one cause produced it ; it is the result of a cumula- 
tion of causes all working toward the same end. 

As the beginning of the change coincided in 
a general way with the Manchu conquest, in the 
first half of the seventeenth century, the first and 
most obvious explanation is that it is due, in part, 
to the policy of the conquerors. This is the view 
taken by Hue in his well-known book, " The 
Chinese Empire." He says : 

" The Manchoos were, on account of the smallness of 
their numbers in the midst of this vast Empire, compelled 
to adopt stringent measures to preserve their conquest. For 
fear that foreigners should be tempted to snatch their prey 
from them, they have carefully closed the ports of China 
against them, thinking thus to secure themselves from 
ambitious attempts from without.'' 

With the exception of the large-minded Kang- 



14 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

Hsi, the greatest of all the Manchu sovereigns, 
this has been the general policy of the present 
dynasty. No concession has ever been gained 
from it except by force, or the threat of force. It 
has done everything in its power to make friendly 
relations with the West impossible. It was only 
in 1842 that the first ports, Canton, Amoy, Foo- 
chow, Ningpo and Shanghai, were opened to 
commerce, and that after a war in which China 
was worsted. The opening of ports in the Yang- 
tsze River w^as by way of indemnity for the 
murder of Margary, a British consular officer, in 
1874. Others have been opened as the result of 
diplomatic threats, and still others in consequence 
of the war with Japan. It was by force, too, 
that China was compelled to enter into diplomatic 
relations with Western States. The right of 
their ministers to reside in Peking, and freedom 
of residence and travel in the interior, both had 
to be fought for, and were acknowledged only 
after defeat in war. The Manchu Dynasty has 
given nothing which was not wrung from it; it 
has made no concessions of its own accord ; it has 
never taken a single step toward putting its rela- 
tions with foreign powers on a footing of sincere 
friendship. And the policy of the rulers has been 
carried out by the Mandarins, most of whom have 
ceaselessly striven to make foreign residence in 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. 15 

China a painful experience, and to embitter by 
every means in their power the relations between 
the foreigners and the people. The terrible situa- 
tion in North China to-day is but the natural 
result of this exclusive, anti-foreign policy; the 
Manchus are making a last desperate effort to 
expel the West and all that the West stands for 
from the Empire. 

In the changes which the ideas of foreigners, 
if allowed their proper influence on the people, 
would effect, they see their own destruction, and 
are fighting for that which for two centuries and 
a half they have exercised, the right to misrule 
and plunder the nation which they conquered. 
Unhappily, the people do not understand the facts, 
and centuries of precept and example have taught 
them to feel for the foreigner part of the hatred 
with which their rulers are drunk. 

It would be fortunate if the Manchus alone 
were to blame for the anti-foreign feeling of 
China. Unhappily, the foreigners themselves 
have had a large share in creating it. The circum- 
stances attending the first introduction of Euro- 
peans to the Chinese were such as to give that 
people the impression that the visitors were little 
better than pirates and murderers, and not a little 
has occurred since to deepen that unhappy feeling. 
''Rapine, murder, and a constant appeal to force," 



i6 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

says Gorst, '' chiefly characterized the commence- 
ment of Europe's commercial intercourse with 
China." When the first Portuguese traders visited 
that country in the sixteenth century, they were 
well received; but they were soon followed by 
a horde of unscrupulous adventurers, who some- 
times forced their way into the interior and com- 
mitted high-handed acts of piracy. So incensed 
were the Chinese at this violence that, when Por- 
tugal, a few years later, sent an ambassador to 
Peking, he was sent back to Canton, thrown there 
into prison and finally executed. 

Still more deplorable was the impression made 
by the Spaniards. After they seized the Philip- 
pine Islands in 1543, a great expansion of trade 
with China resulted; and such large numbers of 
Chinese settlers went there that in time they out- 
numbered the Europeans in the proportion of 
twenty-five to one. The Spaniards saw in this 
great influx of Chinese immigrants a menace to 
their own sovereignty, and they massacred the 
larger part of the defenceless and innocent 
Chinese."^ The impression w^hich such savage 
butchery of its people made on their native prov- 
ince of Canton may easily be imagined, and partly 
accounts both for the reception which the English 



* See " China," by H. E. Gorst, pp. 202, 203. 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. 17 

met with in the following century when they first 
entered the Canton River, and for the fact that 
the people of that province are, with the exception 
of those of Hu-nan, the most truculent haters of 
foreigners in China. 

The early Dutch and English adventurers had 
also a share in blackening the reputation of 
Europe in the East, and it is not surprising that 
the Chinese came in time to look upon all Euro- 
peans as barbarians, men whose only objects were 
robbery and war. 

The period of unblushing barbarism came to 
an end at last, and Europe set about entering into 
relations with China on the principles of inter- 
national law. But, even then, the claims made 
to equality, however reasonable and just, gave 
great ofifense to the Chinese Government and 
people. To understand this,, it is necessary to 
consider a peculiarity of Chinese civilization too 
often overlooked — its age-long isolation. 

The civilization of China is the development of 
its own national genius and life. Of no nation 
in the West can this be affirmed. The countries 
of America and Europe have been so closely re- 
lated on terms of equality that the civilization of 
no one of them can be said to be entirely its own. 
They have so acted and reacted, one upon an- 
other, by physical force and moral and intellectual 



i8 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

influences, that the civilized Hfe of each is the 
development, not of its own national genius 
merely, but that modified in many and various 
directions by the civilization of each of the others. 
Vastly different have been the conditions under 
which the civilization of China has grown. With 
the exception of India, to which she owes Bud- 
dhism, I do not know to what other country she 
is indebted for anything. She has been surrounded 
by peoples who, in all the great qualities of life, 
were vastly inferior to her. She developed a 
splendid literature, an elaborate system of social 
customs, a noble system of ethics, and they are 
all her own. Her own, too, were some of the 
greatest inventions of man — gunpowder, print- 
ing, and the mariner's compass. Beginning at 
a time which antedates the birth of every other 
nation now living, she has developed, with the 
exception already noted, her own national life, 
learning nothing from her neighbors and teaching 
them all, the quick, intelligent Japanese no less 
than the slow, phlegmatic Corean. Such a his- 
tory naturally taught her to look upon herself as 
the first of nations ; she was acknowledged as such 
by all the nations around her. The inevitable 
result followed; she looked upon all other coun- 
tries as her inferiors. When, therefore, men 
went to her from Europe, not only claiming 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. 19 

equality, but professing to be able to teach her, 
it was a shock to the national pride not easy for 
the West to appreciate. It is not pleasant for 
a people who have thought themselves the chosen 
of the world, and who, it must be admitted, had, 
under the circumstances, some reason for think- 
ing so, to be summoned to sit at the feet of men 
whom their peculiar history and recent experience 
had taught them to look upon as barbarians. The 
claim to equality, then, made by foreigners in ? 
their relations with China has been a cause of 
offense, a fruitful source of antagonism. If it be 
said that the claim was right, and that China has 
had time to learn the folly of her conservatism 
and the madness of her intolerant national pride, 
let it be remembered that the feelings of a nation 
do not easily change, that the prejudices of cen- 
turies cannot be overcome by the teachings of 
a decade. 

Another source of friction and bitterness, this 
time with the Mandarins, has been the attempt to 
enforce some of the commercial clauses of the 
treaties, particularly those relating to the aboli- 
tion of inland taxes on foreign goods. On such 
importations, between the port of entry and their 
destination in the interior, a tax called '' likin" 
is levied at various customs barriers on the way. 
This is a serious burden on foreign trade, and it 



20 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

has been provided by treaty that imported goods 
shall be exempt from such charges on payment 
at the port of entry of an extra sum equal to half 
the regular import tariff. As the duty so levied 
would all be paid to the Central Government, it 
follows that the local administration would 
thereby be deprived of a large part of its custom- 
ary revenues. Two results would ensue — diffi- 
culty in meeting the expenses of the provincial 
governments, and a large curtailment of the per- 
quisites or '' squeezes" of the officials. It is often, 
indeed, claimed that the latter are simply robbery, 
and the cutting off of this source of personal 
revenue from the Mandarins would be an act 
of justice. But this is not entirely true. The 
salaries of the officials are so miserably inadequate 
to meet their necessary expenses that the officials 
are compelled to resort to various illegal methods 
to add to them. That they do so excessively, 
'' squeezing" all that the business will allow, is 
but too true; but that does not alter the fact that 
the administrative system whose servants they are 
forces them to the practice of illegal and dishonest 
expedients. Before, therefore, the treaty clauses 
dealing with this subject can be quietly enforced, 
such administrative changes must be made as will 
remove from the provincial authorities their 
greatest temptation to robbery. Until this is 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. 21 

done, and it will not be done without pressure 
from without, there will remain a fruitful source 
of official antagonism to foreigners, a cause of 
friction irritable alike to Chinese Mandarins and 
to foreign officials and merchants. 

Missions and missionaries, both Catholic and 
Protestant, have also added to the causes of an- 
tagonism. I am aware that this is denied by- 
many of those who are interested in missions, but 
no one will question it who is acquainted with 
the facts. It is not wise to argue from the nobility 
of the missionary motive to its ready appreciation 
by the Chinese people. The motive, so apparent 
to us, is not equally apparent to them. They look 
at it through a medium of unfortunate accompani- 
ments of which we never think. Apart altogether 
from the offense to the national pride involved 
in undertaking to teach a faith claiming to be 
higher than their own, the whole missionary 
movement is unhappily associated with conquest, 
and its toleration is the result of successful war. 
Noble, therefore, though the motives of the Chris- 
tian Church are, its work is tainted by its associa- 
tion with force and conquest. To thoughtful 
Chinese familiar with the recent history of their 
country, the presence of the missionary in every 
province, in country villages as well as in great - 
cities, is a reminder of the national humiliation. 



22 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

There are, indeed, exceptions; there are among 
the leading classes men who look upon the Chris- 
tian missionaries as China's best and only dis- 
interested friends, and the number of such is 
happily increasing; but for the present at least 
the vast majority do not think so. 

There are two things in missionary work which 
distinctly add to the causes of irritation — one, the 
teaching itself; the other, the partly foreign, 
partly Chinese political status of those who ac- 
cept it. They are mistaken who suppose that, 
because of the excellence of Christianity, it must 
lead only to peace and has nothing in it to give 
occasion for offense. The preaching of it is not 
the innocuous thing which it is sometimes con- 
sidered. Like every high moral force, when it 
confronts a lower, conflict is inevitable. The 
instinct of self-preservation compels the adherents 
of the old faith to fight for its existence. Chris- 
tianity not only creates, it also destroys ; it sets up 
new beliefs, new ideals, new standards of conduct, 
a new object of worship, but it pulls down the old. 
This is its necessary record everywhere else; it 
is its record in China. 

In religious matters, the Chinese are among 
the most tolerant of men ; but in their case Chris- 
tianity is opposed to a practice which has pre- 
vailed from the very beginning of their history. 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. 23 

on which they think the whole fabric of society is 
based. The opposition of Christianity to ancestral 
worship is what offends the Chinese most, for 
they consider it an attack on the most sacred of 
obligations, on the very foundation of society 
itself. Missionaries are aware of this, and most 
of them are scrupulously careful in speaking of it. 
I have heard many sermons and addresses by 
them in the seventeen years which I have spent 
in China, but never one in which the ancestral - 
cult was spoken of offensively. But, while speak- 
ing tenderly, the opposition to it is there; the 
churches have adopted toward it a position of 
uncompromising hostility, and the people know 
it. Here lies one of the chief sources of popular 
hostility to foreigners, and there is no way of 
avoiding it, unless the policy of toleration be 
adopted which was followed by the early Jesuits. 
But, as this was rejected by the Catholics them- 
selves on command of the Pope, it is not likely to 
be adopted by them again, and it certainly never 
will be by the Protestants. What, then, is going 
to be done? The thoughtless, ignorant whereof 
they speak, will say : '' Withdraw, rather than 
continue an enterprise so provocative of hostil- 
ity." But this is impossible. The Christian 
Church must preach Christianity. To ask it to 
reject its missionary commission is to ask it to 



24 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

commit suicide. No nation has ever yet been 
Christianized without conflict, and no nation ever 
will be. Nevertheless, it is unwise not to recog- 
nize in the preaching of the new faith a source 
of antagonism, and it is unjust to censure the 
Chinese too severely for their opposition to what 
they do not clearly understand, to a process which 
they regard as destructive of the fundamental 
principles of their national life. With the years 
will come knowledge, but it will come only after 
opposition and strife. 

Two lessons, at least, may be learned from this, 
namely, the tremendous responsibility which our 
Missionary Societies incur in sending mission- 
aries to China, and the solemn obligation under 
which such responsibility puts them to send to 
that distant, difficult and dangerous field only the 
choicest men and women they can find. There is 
no service for which the selection of candidates 
should be so carefully made. The ordinary quali- 
fications are not sufficient. Zeal alone will not 
do. Besides the passion for humanity, of which 
every missionary should be possessed, he should 
have in addition the great virtues of intellectual 
sympathy, the power of appreciating another's 
position, the ability to see the truth where it 
exists, and tact which is unfailing. With such 
qualities as these, the missionaries may hope in 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. 25 

time to overcome prejudice, make their position 
clear, and win an acceptance for the great mes- 
sage which they preach. In that message only is 
China's salvation, for in it alone are the promise 
and the power to effect the moral regeneration 
which is her supreme need. 

Another cause of bitterness in connection with 
missionary work is found in the peculiar political 
status of the native converts, and the immunity 
from various exactions which the treaties guar- 
antee them. It is often asserted by opponents of 
missionaries that they are constantly interfering 
with the ordinary judicial processes of the country, 
saving their converts from the payment of taxes, 
and calling upon Consuls and Ministers, irrespec- 
tive of treaty provisions, to interpose in their 
behalf. All these charges are untrue, so far, at 
least, as Protestant missionaries are concerned. 
Mistakes are sometimes made, but no men are 
more scrupulous than they in their observance 
of the laws of the land. Nevertheless, there 
are real sources of irritation in this connection 
which cannot be denied. The clauses of the 
treaties which guarantee religious liberty to Chi- 
nese converts have usually been interpreted to 
mean that they shall not be persecuted for relig- 
ion's sake, and, specifically, that they shall not 
be compelled to contribute to the maintenance of 



26 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

idol temples, or toward paying the expenses of 
idol processions. Under these heads, many cases 

V are taken by the missionaries to the Consuls, who 
then refer them to the Chinese officials. Unfortu- 
nately, it sometimes turns out on investigation 
that the cases do not come within the treaty limits 
at all, but are old troubles, or even new ones, 
which the Christian complainants persuaded the 
missionary were instances of religious persecu- 
tion. The embarrassment of such a discovery is 
painful, painful to the missionary who was de- 

' ceived, to the Consul who took the case up, and 
to the Chinese Magistrate who tried it. Worse 
than all is the effect in the village where the 
parties to the trouble reside, where the Christian 
is accused of trying to use his relation to the 
foreigners to crush his neighbors. The resulting 
irritation and prejudice are lamentable in the ex- 
treme. 

Even when the cases are genuine, and the 
Christians are declared by the Magistrate exempt 
from the exactions referred to, there are two 
parties offended; the people are angry because 
some of their neighbors are saved by foreign in- 
fluence from a pressure which they themselves 
have to submit to and which becomes heavier in 
proportion as the Christians are relieved from it; 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. 27 

and the Magistrate is humiliated because at the 
demand of a foreign ofificial he has to give judg- 
ment against the wishes of a majority of his own 
people. Here, therefore, is another widespread 
source of popular irritation. But how is it to be 
avoided? The question is too complicated to be 
discussed here. Some would withdraw Consular 
protection altogether and leave the converts en- 
tirely to the laws of the land. In that case, fair- 
ness would demand that the missionaries be 
treated in the same way and be subject to the same 
laws. But no class of foreigners in China can 
be left without protection without endangering 
the interests, if not the lives, of all. Deny the 
protection of their country to missionaries, and 
all other foreigners will speedily find that the 
protection promised them will be of little avail. 
The problem is one for statesmen, the thing I 
wish to note being simply that the peculiar posi- 
tion of converts, the privileges and immunities 
they enjoy, are among the causes of the antago- 
nism which the Chinese entertain toward foreign- 
ers. These observations are made in no spirit of 
criticism, but with a sincere desire to draw the 
attention of the missionary authorities and the 
Christian public to the facts, in order that the 
subject may be thoroughly studied, and such 



28 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

regulations be adopted, if possible, as will lessen 
the area of friction and reduce the number of the 
causes of trouble. 

In addition to all this, missionaries are often 
thought of as spies of their own governments; 
and by some of those who are familiar with the 
history of other parts of Asia, the fate of India 
is feared for their country. Many a time have 
I been asked what my Government paid me for 

" coming to China, and when I answered, *' Noth- 
ing," and showed that I had no connection with 
the Government whatever, my reply was evidently 
received with no little incredulity. Again, in the 
minds of many, the whole missionary movement 
is suspected because of the striking contrast be- 

-tween its professed aim and the conduct of some 
Christian governments toward China. And surely 
this cannot be wondered at. With Western mis- 
sionaries preaching peace and Western govern- 
ments practicing murder, it should not surprise us 
if the Chinese suspect the former as much as they 
fear the latter. You cannot go to a people with 
the Bible in one hand and a bludgeon in the other, 
and expect that they will accept either cheerfully. 
Some European governments have been guilty, 
even in recent times, of the most atrocious conduct 
toward China. In 1884, a French fleet entered 

• the Min River and anchored ten miles below the 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. 29 

great city of Foochow, in Southeastern China, to 
frighten the government at Peking into paying 
an indemnity demanded by the French Minister 
for alleged guilty complicity in helping the people 
of Tonquin in their fight against the seizure of 
their country by France. When he failed, the 
case was given over to the Admiral, the French 
ships opened fire, and in less than an hour the 
Chinese fleet, with the exception of one ship, was 
destroyed and over 3,000 Chinese killed, and all 
without a declaration of war. The bodies of the 
dead floated out to sea on the tide, many of them 
were borne back on the returning current, and 
for days it was hardly possible to cross the river 
anywhere between the anchorage and the sea 
, twenty miles below without seeing some of these 
dreadful reminders of French treachery and 
brutality. The people of the city were roused to 
fury, and the foreigners would have been attacked 
but for the presence of American and English 
gunboats anchored off the settlement to protect 
them. If some of us had been killed the world 
would have rung with denunciation of Chinese 
cruelty, but the 3,000 victims of French guns 
would never have been thought of. 

Two years ago the French perpetrated an 
equally atrocious outrage at Shanghai. Wishing 
to enlarge their settlement, they desired to obtain 



30 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

possession of a large rest house for the dead 
which belonged to the people of Ningpo. Failing 
in negotiations, the French Consul proceeded to 
tear down the surrounding walls. The people 
opposed; marines were landed from a French 
• cruiser in the river ; they fired on the crowd and 
killed twenty. The people of other nationalities 
at Shanghai prepared to defend themselves, but 
they all knew that any riots, if riots occurred, 
should be laid to the injustice and brutality of 
France. 

The burning down of villages in Shan-tung by 
the Germans, to which I have already referred, 
was an act of the same character. 

All these instances of the cruel use of force by 
foreigners were heralded far and wide by the 
Chinese newspapers, and the impression made on 
the people it is not hard to imagine. These papers 
have also made the reading public aware of the 
deprivations of territory recently suffered by 
China, and of the cool discussions of the dismem- 
berment of the Empire indulged in by the foreign 
press. No wonder the people were humiliated 
and angry. Many a time have I been asked by 
thoughtful and patriotic Chinese when the end 
would come and China cease to be an independent 
State. All her finest harbors have already been 
taken ; there is not a place on her coast where her 



CAUSES OF ANTI-FOREIGN FEELING. 31 

fleet can rendezvous, except by the grace of for- 
eigners. Port Arthur, a fortified harbor, on which 
milHons were spent, has been leased to Russia; 
Wei-Hai-Wei, with its fortifications, on the coast 
of Shan-tung, to England; Kiao Chow, also in 
Shan-tung, with the finest bay on the coast of 
China, large enough to accommodate the fleets 
of the world, to Germany ; and Kwang-Chau bay, 
on the southern coast of Kwang-tung, to France. 
There would be some justification for these seiz- 
ures — for seizures they are, though called only 
"leases'' — if they had been made in retaliation for 
broken pledges, for crimes for which the govern- 
ment was responsible ; but every one knows that, 
with the apparent exception of Kiao Chow, and 
the exception is apparent only, they are all due 
to the mutual fears and mutual jealousies of 
foreign States. The sovereignty of China over 
her own domain is not recognized; he who is 
strong enough may take what he pleases, and his 
neighbor, lest the balance of power be broken, 
may go and do the same. That under such cir- 
cumstances the wrath of the people is aroused is 
no matter for wonder. The West cannot sow the 
wind in the East without having later to meet the 
terrible necessity of reaping the whirlwind. 

I have tried to give a fair analysis of the causes 
of the anti-foreign feeling which prevails in 



32 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

China. It is not complete ; there are other causes 
which might be mentioned. But I have given 
those which are most important, those which con- 
cern us most. It must be evident, I think, after 
studying them, that the antagonism of Chinese 
to foreigners is not altogether groundless; that 
foreigners themselves have had a large share in 
creating it. I trust that when the present fierce 
uprising is put down, when peace is restored to 
the distracted Empire, and the time for the settle- 
ment of claims has come, this painful fact will 
not be forgotten. 

George B. Smyth, 



THE POWERS AND THE PARTITION 
OF CHINA. 



THE POWERS AND THE PARTITION 
OF CHINA. 

The unusual attention given to Chinese affairs 
for two years past has been largely due to affairs 
in China which are foreign as well as Chinese. 
The scramble of European Powers has shifted 
from Constantinople to Peking, and into this 
scramble Japan and the United States have en- 
tered. The destiny of China seems to depend 
upon action taken in London, Berlin, St. Peters- 
burg, Paris and Tokyo. The future of Europe 
and America, and the question of the new '' bal- 
ance of power," depends on action taken in 
Peking. After all, in an unexpected way, one- 
fourth of the human race as concentrated in 
China must be reckoned with in making the map 
of the world. 

The attitude of the great Powers to China is 
only partially indicated through the voice of the 
people, the press and public debate, and has 



Z6 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

scarcely been enunciated through the Govern- 
ments. China is thus in the dark as to what 
others want or intend to do, and we are all more 
or less puzzled in proportion to our degree of 
solicitude for her welfare. . 

For two years the writer, in a campaign for 
the International Institute of China, has been 
brought in contact with influential and thinking 
men in as many as ten countries, and especially 
with those most deeply interested in, or respon- 
sible for, the character of the relations which the 
West will hold with the Far East. Necessarily, 
it is in many cases impossible to give an author- 
ized statement of acting ministers, but we can 
give impressions and our grounds for certain 
beliefs, which may help to explain the real situa- 
tion. 

I. Great Britain. — Every British Govern- 
ment, until the present, has been in favor of 
maintaining the integrity of China. Parties have 
been agreed on this matter. So long as Great 
Britain was the predominant Power in China, 
this policy was unmodified. With the growing 
advance of other Powers, and especially with the 
increasing influence of Russia at the capital of 
China, the present Salisbury Government drifted 
into a policy of passivity. Instead of insisting 
on maintaining the integrity of China, it excused 



THE PARTITION OF CHINA. 37 

itself from that task, and insisted on maintaining 
British interests, whatever became of China. The 
strong position sustained in the speeches of Sir 
Michael Hicks-Beach in the early part of 1898 
for the '' open door," was relinquished for the 
new theory of '' spheres of interest," as enun- 
ciated by the Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour, and as 
illustrated by the agreement made with Russia 
concerning spheres of railway and mining con- 
cessions. All the time, however, the Government 
has declared that the open door is not closed, and 
plainly shows a desire to have China kept intact. 

The '' open door" policy, or that of '' equality 
of opportunity," is, no doubt, the preference of 
the British people. The burdens of a world-wide 
empire drive out ambition for further territory 
and political responsibilities in China. 

At the same time, there has been a strong, 
active, persistent agitation for '' spheres of in- 
fluence," or more particularly for a British sphere 
of influence in the Yang-tse Valley. Not merely 
statesmen of the Opposition, but men on the same 
side of the House with the Government, have 
advocated these ideas. Several times the defense 
of the " open door" has been left to members of 
the Cabinet. The claim has been that there is 
no longer an open door, that the Government has 
weakened, that British interests are imj)erilled, 



38 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

that British influence has dedined, and that the 
only hope for Great Britain is to " ear-mark" the 
Yang-tse Valley. The undercurrent is suspicion 
of Russia and the conviction that Russia has 
already practically taken possession of Manchuria, 
while Germany holds sway in Shan-tung. Very 
few openly declare for the partition of China, but 
their arguments, if carried out, would drift that 
way. In any case, China's wishes or rights are 
utterly ignored. This agitation, and its support 
by the London press, has tended to weaken Brit- 
ish reputation in China. 

Lord Charles Beresford came back from his 
commercial investigations in China with two 
propositions for maintaining the open door — the 
one military, namely, drilling Chinese troops for 
the defense of the Yang-tse Valley ; and the other 
political, namely, a combination of Great Britain, 
Germany, Japan and the United States, as an- 
tagonistic to Russia and France. Both of these 
propositions failed to secure the support of the 
British Government, and Lord Charles Beresford 
has, therefore, joined with the critics of the Gov- 
ernment, and in doing so has drifted into the idea 
that the open door was closed, and that Great 
Britain should make sure of some special sphere, 
before all should be lost to her. 

Nevertheless, the critics of the policy of the 



THE PARTITION OF CHINA. 39 

Government have latterly a slight impression 
that, if it is too late to argue for an *' open door/' 
it may also be too late to argue for a '' sphere of 
influence." The agitation for a particular sphere 
has aroused other nations to make claims of their 
own. The result is such an intermingling of inter- 
ests that division into separate spheres would be 
harder to effect than the maintenance of competi- 
tion everywhere. For Great Britain to secure 
a sphere of her own would require one of three 
things. One way would be to secure it by agree- 
ment with China, but China would not, or could 
not, make such an agreement and retain even the 
semblance of sovereignty. Another way would 
be by agreement with other rival Powers ; but, in 
attempting this, all that the British desire would 
not be granted, while other Powers would secure 
more in the way of recognized spheres than they 
now seem to aim at. A third way would be for 
Great Britain to consult neither China nor the 
other Powers, but to establish herself suddenly in 
the part that she seeks for her own ; but this she 
cannot do without numerous complications with 
China and the Powers, and, furthermore, she has 
too much on her hands elsewhere to attempt such 
a colossal venture as an independent demarcation 
of her own sphere. Therefore, as the British 
already have interests outside the Yang-tse Val- 



40 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

ley, and other Powers have interests within the 
Yang-tse Valley, there comes the chance to China 
to be left unmolested. 

11. Russia. — The suspicion that the British 
hold toward the Russians with reference to China 
is about equalled by Russian suspicion of Great 
Britain. British suspicion arises from an igno- 
rance of what the Russians really think or intend 
to do. Russian suspicion arises from the open 
declarations and threatening propositions of the 
British public and its free press. 

Nine out of ten persons in the United Kingdom 
believe that Russia wants to take possession of 
the whole of China, or at least of Peking and all 
North China. Our personal conviction to the 
contrary has always been received with surprise 
as a strange hallucination. The ground for this 
conviction can be briefly stated. 

Russia is more of an Oriental nation than any 
other European Power. There is much in com- 
mon between Russia and China. They are both 
conservative and autocratic in government. The 
proximity of territory and partial homogeneity of 
race would naturally lead these two nations to 
sympathize with each other, especially if others 
sought to intrude. Russia, as the stronger of the 
two, might have an ambition to dominate her 
neighbor, as she has dominated vast tracts and 



THE PARTITION OF CHINA. 41 

difterent tribes in northern Asia; but the inter- 
national relations of both Russia and China forbid 
this. Russia knows that if she advances into 
China, other Powers will do the same. The sub- 
jection of the whole of China to Russia is a very 
different thing to the complex partition of China. 
The former is impossible; the latter to Russian 
eyes is undesirable. In Asia, Russia prefers a 
peaceful neighbor like China to her two European 
rivals, Germany and Great Britain — both in- 
tensely military and much wealthier than herself. 
The Slavic sympathies are more with the Mon- 
golian than with the Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon, 
in anything that pertains to China. 

There are those who praise highly the fore- 
sightedness of Russian diplomacy. It is a com- 
mon idea that Russia forms a definite plan, and 
works for its execution, slowly but with deter- 
mination, through years, and even into centuries. 
My own impression is quite different. The Rus- 
sians are not long-headed either in commerce or 
diplomacy. They rather have a supreme belief 
in Providence as a destiny leading their race and 
their Czar to ever-expanding spheres of domina- 
tion. They design nothing, for Providence is 
leading them on. 

An essential factor in the political attitude of 
Russia is the Czar. He has already given proof 



42 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

of his peaceful intents, not only in world-wide 
problems, but specifically in China. He has an- 
nounced to the world that Talien-wan is open to 
the trade of all nations, but few Englishmen and 
Americans have given even meagre praise to his 
published declaration and peaceful policy. 

There is a small faction in Russia, led by Prince 
Ookhtomsky, which is positively friendly to 
China. In frequent conversations with this gentle- 
man, we were struck with his intense and intelli- 
gent interest in the welfare of China. His paper, 
the Viedomosti, is noted both for its antagonism 
to the British and its defense of the Chinese. 
After hearing our plan for an International Insti- 
tute at Peking, he had three editorials prepared 
in its advocacy, one being entitled in English '' A 
Helping Hand to China." 

The opponents of Russia generally close the 
door of discussion by the statement, '' Russia has 
already taken possession of Manchuria." Facts, 
however, do not support this charge. Manchuria 
is still under Manchu rule, and the people pay 
taxes to China, not to Russia. There is even less 
interference in internal affairs than China com- 
plains of in other parts of China from other 
countries. Nothing has been done to frustrate 
the work of either Protestant or Catholic mission- 
aries. The port of Newchwang is still an open 



THE PARTITION OF CHINA. 43 

port, and it is yet to be proved that foreign trade 
in Manchuria has been hampered by Russia. 
Russia, quite sensibly, has wanted an ice-free 
port, and the opportunity to improve the indus- 
trial development of her own extensive domain. 
She now seeks to become something of a com- 
mercial nation, and to extend commercial rela- 
tions with the United States on the one side and 
with England on the other. She also aspires to 
predominant influence in Chinese affairs, as other 
nations do, and the time will come, perhaps, when 
education and missions, as well as commerce and 
diplomacy, will form a part of Russian enterprise. 

All this is other than the scheme to dismember 
China. And yet the dismemberment of China 
is very much " in the air." Russia, therefore, is 
preparing and strengthening her position. Let 
any other nation seize a portion of Chinese terri- 
tory, then Russia will at once seize Manchuria 
and Mongolia to march on to Peking. Russia, 
even more than many Englishmen, would prefer 
to have China held together. 

III. France. — For many years France and 
Great Britain were joined in the effort to open 
up China. Latterly, France and Russia have been 
joined, and this last alliance has aroused the 
suspicion of the British. The chief influence of 
France in China has been missionary rather than 



44 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

commercial, and this fact tends to restrain any 
personal desires for Chinese dismemberment. 
From the beginning of treaty relations with 
China, all Catholic missions have been regarded 
as under the French protectorate. The only ex- 
ception has been the case of Germany during the 
last decade. The special favor accorded to 
France has been increased within the last year 
by China's recognition of the official status of 
Catholic missionaries and the right of the French 
Minister at Peking to interfere and protect. This, 
therefore, gives scope for French influence in 
every province of China, and also in Mongolia 
and Manchuria. France knows very well that, 
if China were to be dismembered, her influence in 
the missionary line would be curtailed. She, 
therefore, prefers to keep China intact and have 
influence everywhere in China. 

In even the commercial line France does not 
care to be limited to a few provinces along the 
Tonquin border. She has a French " settlement" 
in Shanghai and Tientsin, and a '' concession" in 
Hankow. She is the largest investor in the rail- 
road to be built between Hankow and Peking. 
She has also great political influence at Peking. 
To divide China would not serve the interests of 
France. 

IV. Germany. — The other leading European 



THE PARTITION OF CHINA. 45 

Power concerned in the future of China is Ger- 
many. The occasion for the rise of German 
influence in China was the massacre of two 
German Catholic missionaries in the Province 
of Shan-tung. One-third of that province is a 
German diocese. The protection of the CathoHc 
mission within that section was transferred from 
France to Germany ten years ago. In addition, 
Germany has influence in a commercial way by 
securing as an outcome of the missionary diffi- 
culties the port of Kiao Chow, and certain rail- 
road and mining concessions throughout the 
province. This is the German '' sphere of inter- 
est,'' which may lead to actual possession. Such 
a result would not, however, be for the best 
interests of Germany. Germany has Protestant 
missions in the south where France would rule 
if China were to be dismembered. German mer- 
chants are also given wide scope for trade at all 
the treaty ports and through the natives far into 
the interior. A few high-handed officers or ir- 
responsible adventurers may boast of making 
Shan-tung a German possession, but the German 
Government and German merchants would fare 
better by being friendly and true to China and by 
exerting influence over the whole of China. The 
danger to be faced is from the massacre of more 
Germans, which would cause Germany to ignore 



46 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

Chinese rule and proceed to rule for herself. In 
fact, I regard this as the greatest danger to the 
preservation of China. The Chinese in Shan-tung 
are turbulent, and, through the aggressiveness of 
the Germans, most hostile to foreigners, and espe- 
cially to the Germans. 

V. The United States. — Different from the 
influence of the European Powers in China is that 
of the United States. While the equal of any of 
the Powers, this advancing Republic, the pre- 
dominant Power on the American continent, has 
maintained from the year 1842 a friendly atti- 
tude to China. Even with the cry for expansion 
and her presence in Asiatic waters, she has dis- 
played no inclination to participate in the dis- 
memberment of China. Certain Americans are 
inclined to unite with the British in some definite 
China policy, while others look with favor on 
closer relations with Russia, but the National 
Government, in so far as it has a policy, puts 
forth no positive action either to divide China 
or maintain her integrity, but seeks to protect 
American interests as guaranteed by treaties. 
Naturally, this policy, like that of the British 
Government, is more allied to an " open door," 
with equality of opportunity, but there is no readi- 
^ ness to resist the aggressions of other Powers, so 
long as American trade is not hampered nor 



THE PARTITION OF CHINA. 47 

American citizens molested. It is, therefore, pos- 
sible for the United States to maintain equally 
friendly relations with China, with Great Brit- 
ain, with Russia, or any other Power, if nothing 
is done to eliminate China as a treaty-making 
Power, or to make sections of China partial to 
some one country in rights, privileges and oppor- 
tunities. If China is not to be dismembered, there 
is no need for the United States to interfere, but 
if dismemberment is to be undertaken, the very 
existence of extensive American interests, com- 
mercial and missionary, and the fact that for over 
half a century the United States has had in 
Eastern Asia diplomatic relations equally with 
others, will require that the United States be not 
only consulted, but given an equal share in the 
distribution of new opportunities. 

The average American has less respect for the 
Chinese as a race than have most of the European 
peoples. This is probably owing to the greater 
acquaintance on the part of Americans with 
Chinese laborers than with the better class Chi- 
nese, and to American legislation on the Chinese 
question. We hear much of the obligation of the 
Chinese to observe the treaties, but very little of 
American obligation in relation to China. In 
consequence there is striking unconcern as to the 
welfare of the Chinese or the permanence of the 



48 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

Chinese Empire. Very few realize the danger 
to American interests of allowing the dismem- 
berment of China. The downfall of the Chinese 
Government is thought of as something similar 
to the displacement of Indian rule by British 
domination, whereas China would be parcelled 
out among different nations, and would not be 
like one people under one foreign rule. 

Any change of American sentiment in the 
direction of recognizing the importance of keep- 
ing China intact has been largely brought about 
by an increased conviction that, legitimately, the 
United States must enter into movements that 
affect the world, and more particularly by the 
ambition to expand American trade throughout 
the whole of China. The sense of fair play, 
furthermore, is shocked by such a colossal pro- 
gramme as that of trying to divide a great and 
ancient Empire among outside nations, mutually 
jealous and relying for supremacy on skill in 
warfare. 

VI. Japan. — In any question that concerns 
China, Japan must have a part. As Japan is the 
neighbor of China, this is to be expected, and as 
she is the recognized equal of Christian nations, 
this is her right. To prevent the further aggres- 
sions of Europe, and especially of Russia, all the 
people of Japan may be said to be in favor of 



THE PARTITION OF CHINA. 49 

defending China and strengthening her independ- 
ence. The end of China might be the beginning 
of the downfall of Japan. As Oriental nations, 
they stand or fall together. The question of the 
" open door" was hardly thought of when Japan 
vanquished China on sea and land, but when 
Russia, France and Germany proceeded to inter- 
fere in the result, and later on to make demands 
for privileges for themselves, which China could 
not resist, then Japan reversed her course and 
sided with China. An alliance, formal or infor- 
mal, is inevitable. 

Thus, through mutual jealousies of the nations, 
China may be held together. All seek their own 
interests first, from what some would term patri- 
otic motives, and yet this very self-interest is 
dependent on the preservation of China. A 
scramble for conquest, possessions, sovereignty, 
in China would endanger the peace of the whole 
world. Even a struggle for established spheres 
of influence, with Chinese authority weakened 
more and more, would not only be treacherous to 
China, but provoke such discord, animosities, 
riots and resentments as to make the loss and 
trouble of the participants greater than the gain 
and honor. Each nation, while anxious for more 
influence, is opposed to the increased influence of 
any other nation. The whole territory of China 



50 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

presents so many opportunities for foreign enter- 
prise that all prefer competition to exclusiveness 
and dismemberment. 

Gilbert Reid. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM IN 
CHINA. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM IN 
CHINA. 

Signs are not wanting that we are on the eve 
of another poHtical convulsion in China, a violent 
reaction from the masterly and masterful inter- 
vention of the Dowager Empress. The forces 
which have been swaying China this way and that 
for the last generation are still actively at work; 
while time is surely if slowly wearing away the 
barrier which has kept the flowing tide in check. 

Many writers, in a glow of controversial zeal, 
were led to represent the palace revolution as the 
visible evidence of an occult struggle between 
Russia and England for the sovereignty of the 
Far East; and, considering the forced retirement 
of the Emperor Kuang-Hsu a victory for the 
Russian party, they confidently predicted a speedy 
countercheck from Great Britain, and exulted 
over it in advance as a victory for progress, enter- 
prise and a higher phase of civilization. 

In reality, the revolution in Peking had nothing 



54 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

whatever to do with either Russia or England. 
It happened that one of the chiefs on the side of 
the Dowager Empress, the venerable Li Hung 
Chang, was a firm friend of Russia, and this gave 
color to the partisan view; but it might just as 
well have been the other way. The watershed of 
the Chinese movement, so to speak, is a question 
of internal policy alone. 

There are, in fact, two parties in Chinrf, one 
extremely radical and the other extremely con- 
servative. The former is the party of the Em- 
peror Kuang-Hsu; the latter is the party of the 
Dowager Empress Tshu-Chsi. The Conservatives, 
under the lead of this remarkable woman, aspire 
to keep China as far as possible a forbidden land, 
a second Tibet, governed on traditional and 
theocratic lines. The Radicals, on the other hand, 
desire to see China follow the lead of Japan, and 
put on the whole armor of civilization, as we 
understand it in Europe and America. 

But the Conservatives are in sympathy with 
Russia only to a very limited extent; it is, with 
them, a sympathy of tradition rather than of 
policy, for the relations between Russia and China 
go back to the Middle Ages. They regard Russia 
as a friendly Asiatic despotism, and hardly as a 
European country at all. 

The Radicals, on the other hand, have no par- 




Reproduced from Harper's Weekly 

THE GREAT SOUTH GATE, PEKING 



THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM. 55 

ticular sympathy with England. It is, indeed, 
one of the elements of their policy to foster closer 
relations with Japan, in order that China and 
Japan together may be able to stand independently 
as a great Asiatic power, throwing off the yoke 
of European, and especially of English, interfer- 
ence. 

In truth, the questions which divide these two 
parties in China are much more serious and pro- 
found than one would be led to believe from read- 
ing the accounts of the critics and chroniclers of 
our press. They have a way of leaping to conclu- 
sions, which shows a great deal of courage, it is 
true, but, on the other hand, a great ignorance 
of the Oriental world, and of the thoughts and 
feelings of Oriental peoples. 

It is taken as axiomatic, for example, that a 
theocratic government is something wholly out 
of place in the modern world ; an exploded super- 
stition of a bygone age; something quite out of 
keeping with modern ideas and modern life. But 
Germany, and indeed every monarchical country, 
is in principle a theocracy; for the kingship is 
founded on divine right; and the fact that the 
coronation is a religious ceremony shows that the 
divine sanction is still conceived as authorizing 
the Emperor to rule. Russia, where the Emperor 
himself sets the crown upon his head, is even more 



S6 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

directly theocratic; the ruler draws his right 
direct from heaven, without the interposition of 
the Church. But every monarchy is in principle 
a theocracy, just as every aristocracy admits the 
principle of ancestor-worship. 

So that there is nothing essentially incompati- 
ble with Western ideas in even the extreme ideals 
of the Chinese Conservatives. And, as far as 
they believe in adhering to the traditional and 
native forms of Chinese life, and, incidentally, of 
Chinese arts and handicrafts, there is much to be 
said for them, too ; for these are the forms of life 
which they have developed for themselves during 
generations, and even now their arts and crafts 
are in many things so superior to ours that we 
buy as ornaments things which they destined 
simply for common use. In Europe the very latest 
ideal in arts and crafts is the introduction of the 
personal and creative element in all workmanship 
as against machinery. But this was the ideal of 
China and Japan from the very outset. Every 
Japanese and Chinese artisan is an artist, and in 
this they are a century ahead of their Western 
critics. 

So that one may easily make out a very strong 
general case for the Conservatives in China. And, 
when this has been done, it becomes doubly inter- 
esting to apply the same process in detail, and to 



THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM. 57 

inquire what precisely were the innovations which 
the Emperor Kuang-Hsu sought to introduce, 
and why this attempt was so completely frus- 
trated. 

First, a word about the Emperor himself. 
Kuang-Hsu is an imperial title, meaning '' Endur- 
ing Majesty;" the prince's personal name is Teai- 
Tsien. He is only twenty-seven years old, though 
he has borne the title of Emperor ever since the 
death of his cousin, the Emperor Chai-Chin, five 
and twenty years ago, and has been sole respon- 
sible ruler, in theory at least, for the last nine 
years. The Emperor Kuang-Hsu is slight and 
delicate, almost childish in appearance, of pale 
olive complexion, and with great, melancholy 
eyes. There is a gentleness in his expression that 
speaks rather of dreaming than of the power to 
turn dreams into acts. It is strange to find a per- 
sonality so ethereal among the descendants of the 
Mongol hordes; yet the Emperor Kuang-Hsu 
might sit as a model for some Oriental saint on 
the threshold of the highest beatitude. Though 
it is eleven years since his marriage with Princess 
Eho-na-la, the Emperor is childless. 

It is not so long since the nobles of our most 
civilized Western lands counted it a vice to write 
well, and slept on rushes in their torch-lit, wooden 
halls. Their ideals were war and hunting, with 



58 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

bows and arrows, for the most part, with legalized 
plundering of the agricultural population to renew 
their supplies of bread. In those days China was 
far more civilized than any European country; 
and, in the life of the Chinese Empire, that period 
is only as yesterday. The two things which have 
done most to change the relative positions of East 
and West are gunpowder and printing, yet both 
of these have been known in China for ages. So 
that any inherent superiority on the part of the 
West is rather a pleasing fiction ; much might be 
said in the contrary sense. The West is superior 
in combative and destructive elements — the very 
things which the religion of the West has been 
trying to eradicate for two thousand years; so 
that, even from a Western point of view, Europe's 
material victory is a moral defeat. 

Yet it is none the less true that China has been 
overshadowed and left behind by the Western 
nations, and the recognition of this fact is the 
starting point of the Emperor's policy. 

He conceives the remedy to be an infusion of 
new life into the education of the people ; a super- 
session of the wonderful system of intellectual 
training, perfected centuries ago, which forms all 
minds alike on the great Chinese Classics, '' the 
best that has been thought and said" in the Celes- 
tial Land. It is the battle of utility against culture 



THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM, 59 

fought out once more on Chinese Hnes. Chemis- 
try and physics, engineering and miHtary science 
are to take the place of essays and poems ex- 
quisitely fashioned after ancient models, now the 
sole test of talent throughout the Empire, and 
perfection in which is the royal road to fame and 
fortune. 

It is hard to tell which we should most admire, 
the genuine enthusiasm of all China for literary 
culture, for familiarity with the highest thoughts 
and noblest words of the sages, or the marvellous 
ingenuity and precision with which this knowl- 
edge is tested by a system of examinations hardly 
equalled, and never surpassed, by any nation in 
the world — the vast halls, with their cloister-like 
divisions for ten thousand candidates; the seals 
set on the doors before the papers are given out ; 
the counted sheets of stamped paper with name 
and number for the essays and poems of each can- 
didate; the army of clerks copying the themes in 
red ink, lest any personal sign or mark should 
lead the examiner to recognize a favored pupil ; 
the enthusiastic crowds gathering at the doors; 
the cannons and music which greet the candidates 
first to come forth; the literary chancellor cere- 
moniously presiding; the lists of the successful 
eagerly bought up in the streets ; the chosen essays 
and poems sent to Court for the delectation of the 



6o THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

Emperor; the gold-buttoned caps and blue silk 
gowns of the graduates; and, lastly, the almost 
pathetic provision that whoever continues without 
success to try for any degree until his eightieth 
year shall receive it free, from the Emperor him- 
self, as a reward for faithful love of learning. 

By the way, we should keep some of our admi- 
ration for the more than human ingenuity with 
which the Chinese students sometimes evade even 
the strictest precautions : the tunnels dug beneath 
the examination halls, through which surrepti- 
tious knowledge is passed up to the candidates, 
written minutely on the finest paper; the offices 
where needy and brilliant essayists are hired to 
personate dull, wealthy scholars; the refinement 
of knavery that decrees that, while the rank of 
the examination to be compounded for rises in 
arithmetical progression, the bribe increases in 
geometrical ratio. All this but shows, by crooked 
ways, how highly learning is esteemed. 

Yet all this^ while it reminds us how foolish 
we are to think of Chinamen as uncivilized, is not 
enough to win the battles of the world. There- 
fore, the Emperor Kuang-Hsu deemed it neces- 
sary to decree reform and the introduction of the 
utilitarian spirit. Peking is to have a University, 
as a rallying point for the modern spirit ; and here 
a characteristic note of Chinese radicalism is 



THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM. 6i 

struck ; for the methods and standards of this first 
Chinese University are to be taken not directly 
from Europe, but mediately through Japan. It is 
conceived that Western ideals will then have 
undergone a process of partial assimilation and 
amelioration, making them more immediately 
suitable for the Chinese mind. In other words, 
it is held that the Japanese have already improved 
the culture they received from Europe, and that 
the Chinese, following in their steps, will improve 
it still further. 

This drawing together of China and Japan is 
one of the key-notes of the radical programme 
of the Emperor Kuang-Hsu. "China and Japan," 
says a recent edict, " have a common language, 
they belong to the same race, they have all inter- 
ests in common." 

So a band of students are to set out from the 
Celestial Empire to the Flowery Land, as guests 
of the Japanese nation, there to absorb the light 
which they are presently to radiate, as teachers, 
in their own land. Two hundred are to go, as 
a beginning, and they are already being chosen 
among those who have some knowledge of Japan- 
ese. And before they return, if Kuang-Hsu's 
programme is carried out, Peking will have, be- 
sides her University, a whole system of primary 
and intermediate schools, and this system, mod- 



62 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

elled on the best Western plans, will gradually 
be extended to every considerable city of the 
Empire. 

The University of Tokio, which is held to be 
the high-water mark of blended European and 
Japanese culture, is to serve as the model for the 
Peking institution, and temporary quarters have 
been assigned to the teachers in the princely pal- 
aces of the capital, pending the erection of suit- 
able University buildings. Meanwhile, the sum 
originally allotted to the Committee on Education 
has been increased threefold, by a special Imperial 
edict, and the sum set aside for the maintenance 
of the committee has been doubled. 

The thoroughly practical spirit pervading this 
new educational movement in China is shown in 
an Imperial order recently dispatched to the coast 
provinces : the Viceroys, Governors, Prefects and 
District Magistrates — the four chief degrees in 
the executive hierarchy — are directed to furnish 
the Emperor with precise information as to pos- 
sible means of increasing the naval schools and 
supplying new training-ships for the fleet. A 
further very practical move is the formation of 
a Committee on Railroads and Engineering, with 
orders to draft plans for the opening of schools 
of railroad engineering at a number of central 
points through the Empire, from which, it is 



THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM. 63 

hoped, railroads will soon radiate to every consid- 
erable town, and through all the provinces. 

Close on the heels of this follows another Com- 
mittee on Agriculture, Manufactures and Trade. 
To the President and Vice-President of this com- 
mittee are specifically reserved the right of free 
access to the Emperor at all times, on the business 
of their departments ; and when we remember the 
divinity that hedges in the Son of Heaven we 
shall better understand how much he is in earnest, 
and how clearly he shows it by sacrificing his 
ceremonial prerogatives. A School of Agriculture 
is to be formed, with branches in each district of 
every province of the Empire, and these branch 
schools are to procure the latest agricultural ma- 
chinery, and to exhibit its advantages to the mass 
of cultivators in the rural districts. It is hoped 
that a decade will not pass before the whole 
agriculture of China is transformed by the use 
of tilling and harvesting machines. 

Another innovation, which seems to have been 
borrowed from India, was suggested by last 
year's famine in the three provinces of Hu-pe, 
Shan-Si and Shan-tung, all not very far from the 
capital. The Emperor had discovered that the 
system of distributing free rations among the 
starving populations was not a success — or, per- 
haps, we should say, the system of allotting con- 



64 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

siderable sums to that end. For there is the old 
tale of peculation and dishonest officials, a Chinese 
version of the charges more than once brought 
against the American Government in its relations 
with the Red Indians. The Emperor proposes 
to adopt the British Indian expedient of relief- 
works, and further intends to improve the occa- 
sion by employing the men at these works in the 
various new industries which he is seeking to 
introduce throughout the provinces. This would 
include the building of railroads, the establish- 
ment of agricultural machinery, the extension of 
irrigation and the introduction of new manufac- 
tures. So that a famine will come as a blessing 
in disguise. 

Another very important reform touches the 
procedure in civil cases. It is said that the Chi- 
nese courts have a bad eminence in civil law's 
delays, keeping a good fat process on the files for 
months and years, and even decades, to the end 
that many bribes may be taken ; and after a judge 
has taken many bribes from both sides it becomes 
very embarrassing to decide the case at all. The 
traditional solution in India is to put the final 
decision up to auction. Before we pass too heavy 
a sentence on this form of corruption and brand 
it as the mark of an inferior race, we should re- 
member that Sir Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, 



THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM. 65 

Viscount St. Albans, whom Shelley wrongly 
called '' Lord Bacon/' and whom Mr. Gladstone 
even more wrongly called ''Francis, Lord Bacon," 
was degraded for selling the decisions of the high- 
est court in the England of his day. Experience 
makes it probable that this reform will be one of 
the hardest to enforce, since its success depends 
largely on the good- will of the very judges to be 
reformed. 

Yet another measure shows a daring spirit of 
innovation: the foundation of a new Medical 
College at Peking, for the express purpose of 
introducing the methods of modern Europe. A 
license for this College has already been granted ; 
but it has dark days before it, for it strikes a blow 
at vested interests of the most extensive character, 
founded on most venerable traditions. It is as 
though the Federal Government were to organize 
and endow a College for Mental Healing. One 
could predict stormy days for it, whatever opin- 
ion one held as to the Ejfficacy of Faith. It is 
true that Kuang-Hsu throws a sop to Cerberus 
by including in the course the traditional medical 
practice of China side by side with the new meth- 
ods of the West. But it seems to me that this 
is a false move; for w^hat battles there may be 
between the rival professors! Homeopathy and 
allopathy will be nothing to it. 



66 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

But the next reform on the Emperor's list 
admits of no healing balm. It is a decree for the 
suspension of the famous Six Boards, a series 
of venerable sinecures, supposed to look after the 
education of the heir apparent, the royal stables, 
the due performance of bowings and kneelings, 
the imperial banquets, and so forth. Every Euro- 
pean Court has half a dozen departments equally 
ornamental. These interesting survivals — and 
the salaries — are to become a thing of the past, 
their nominal duties are to be passed on to Com- 
mittees of the Senate, and the buildings they 
occupied are to be turned over to the new Medical 
College and the Peking University. 

From a tactical point of view, this seems the 
Emperor's first grave mistake, for it sets the whole 
of the permanent Civil Service against the reform 
programme. Like many another bringer of glad 
tidings, his course might have been smoother if 
he could only have been persuaded to leave the 
Scribes and Pharisees alone. And the whole army 
of bureaucrats and lesser officials has evidently 
taken alarm, for we find a recent edict of the 
Emperor speaking in the following terms : 

" The Government of the Chinese Empire, striving to 
elevate the various departments of the administration, and 
with the sole design of conferring benefits on the people, 
wishes to employ to this end the methods of the nations of 



THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM. 67 

the West, since what is common to the Western nations 
and the Chinese, has been brought to greater excellence by 
the former, and may, therefore, serve for our advancement. 

'' At the same time, the bureaucrats and scholars of this 
Empire, whose views of foreign nations are characterized 
by the greatest ignorance, pretend that Western nations are 
totally devoid of order and enlightenment, not knowing 
that among the Western nations there are many forms of 
political science which have as their sole aim the moral 
elevation of the people, and their material well-being, and 
which, from their high development, are able to heap bene- 
fits on mankind, and to prolong the span of human life. In 
the West, all efforts are directed to procuring the blessings 
which mankind is entitled to. 

" In our ceaseless efforts to reform various departments 
of the administration, we are by no means prompted by 
a mere desire for novelty, but by a sincere aspiration for 
the well-being of the Empire entrusted to us by Providence, 
and handed down to us by our ancestors. We shall not 
have fulfilled our duty, if we fail to secure to all our people, 
the blessings of peace and prosperity. 

" And we are not less grieved at the slights which China 
has had to submit to, at the hands of foreign governments. 
But so long as we do not possess the knowledge and science 
of other peoples, we shall not be able to defend ourselves 
against them. 

" At the same time, our subjects evidently fail to under- 
stand the true purpose of our unsleeping endeavors and 
exertions. The reason of this is that the lower classes of 
officials and the bureaucrats devoted to routine [the Scribes 
and Pharisees] not only do not make our intentions clear, 
but, on the contrary, intentionally confuse the people with 
vain and unseemly speeches. Grieved and vexed that a true 
understanding of our intentions has not reached our sub- 
jects, we inform all China, by the present decree, of the 
true purpose of our doings. This is in order that our 



68. THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

enlightened intentions may be known to the whole people, 
and that the people may know that trust is to be reposed in 
their Ruler, who, with the help of all, will mould the Gov- 
ernment according to new principles, for the strengthening 
and elevation of the Chinese Empire. 

" To this end we order the Viceroys and Governors to 
print these our decrees, and to exhibit them on notice- 
boards, and we order the Prefects and District Magistrates, 
and all schoolmasters, to explain these decrees to the 
people. And likewise, we command the Treasurers, Pro- 
vincial Judges, District Inspectors, Prefects, heads of dis- 
tricts and sub-districts, to lay before us, without fear, 
statements of their views on all imperial questions. And 
these statements are to be forwarded to us sealed, and must 
on no account be kept back by Viceroys and Governors. 
Finally, we order the present decree to be exhibited in a 
prominent place, in the offices of all Viceroys and Gov- 
ernors." 



This is a most important document, and the 
key to much that will happen in the natural course 
of events in the Chinese Empire during the next 
few years. It is the personal confession of faith 
of the despotic Ruler of four hundred millions, 
more than a quarter of the whole human race. 
To carry out a programme like this Kuang-Hsu 
had need to be endowed with an uncommonly 
strong will, and, further, with unerring insight 
into the character of his helpers. Very much of 
future history depends on his possession of these 
two gifts. 

Another projected reform is intended to cut at 



THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM. 69 

the root of what is certainly the greatest evil in 
the system of Chinese Government — the malver- 
sation of the revenues, made possible by the very 
loose system of accounts in vogue in the Treasury 
Department. An autocrat has been defined as 
one whose budget is not audited; if this be so^ 
the Chinese Empire is suffering from an epidemic 
of autocrats. This time the trouble lies not so 
much with the Scribes and Pharisees, as with 
their friends, the Publicans and Sinners — the 
farmers of taxes, who bid so much for the right 
to extort what they can from a long-suffering 
public. The result of this malversation is such 
that while the taxable capacity of China is simply 
enormous, the system of peculation is so thorough 
and so much sticks to the fingers of the collectors 
that the Government is almost chronically bank- 
rupt. The estimated revenue of the Chinese 
Empire amounts to about twenty cents a year for 
each inhabitant. This is about one-fiftieth of the 
rate for most European countries, and less than 
one-hundredth of that of some. So that if the 
revenues of China were raised to about the same 
level per head as, say, those of Belgium or 
Austria-Hungary, China would have a sum of 
from four to eight thousand million dollars a year 
to apply to imperial and administrative purposes. 
And should the innovations contemplated by 



70 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

Kuang-Hsu really be introduced, there is not the 
faintest doubt that China could bear as heavy 
taxes as Belgium or Austria-Hungary, and in 
that case what a formidable vista is opened up 
in the direction of allotments for the Chinese 
Army and Navy to be turned out of the new and 
modernized schools. Further, what sums could 
be spent on bounties to enable any and every 
manufacture to compete with European rival 
products, not only in China, but in all the markets 
of the world. The open door is one of those 
beautiful rules that may work both ways. Suppos- 
ing the door should be found to open outwards as 
well as inwards, and supposing the first thing to 
come forth were a flood of subsidized screw-nails, 
sufficient to drive Mr. Chamberlain out of the 
market, would there not be a sort of poetic justice 
in that? 

As far as the revenue is concerned, Kuang- 
Hsu's avowed purpose does not go beyond a 
stricter system of accounts, a stoppage of some 
of the innumerable leaks in the aqueducts which 
deprive the imperial reservoirs of their supplies. 
But even a slight measure of success in this direc- 
tion will raise the revenue of China to a for- 
midable amount, and, further, would increase her 
borrowing power practically without limit. 

And here we approach a very important matter 



THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM. 71 

from an international standpoint. To carry out 
these schemes requires an army of trained and 
honest administrators; it also requires consider- 
able material resources to keep things going while 
the changes are being introduced. But, while 
there are doubtless many strong and honest men 
in China, the Emperor does not seem as yet to 
have laid his hand on them ; and, as an alternative, 
he suggests, or adopts the suggestion of, a very 
remarkable measure. It is nothing less than an 
appeal to Japan to lend China a band of trained 
administrators, such as England has lent to 
Egypt and India. Only, in the case of China, the 
initiative comes from the borrower, not from the 
lender. And in the light of this idea the recent 
Japanese mission to Peking, under Marquis Ito, 
acquires a new significance. 

An excellent statement of this side of the ques- 
tion appeared in a recent number of one of the 
Peking radical papers. It is worth quoting at 
some length. 

The writer begins by citing instances from the 
early history of China, and the story of Peter the 
Great, to show that reforms may best be carried 
out by foreign agents. He then urges the Em- 
peror to seek the assistance of Marquis Ito in the 
task of regenerating China, asserting that only by 
a Japanese alliance can China take a firm attitude 



n THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

toward foreign powers and keep back the horrors 
of a general war. He continues: 

"If Your Majesty could only persuade Marquis Ito to 
become confidential adviser of China, the reforms which 
you have undertaken would be promptly carried out, and 
the international bond between China and Japan would be 
greatly reinforced; while without Japan's help, the early 
realization of these reforms is impossible. Even granting 
that, among the Chinese who have recently entered the 
arena of public life, a few may be found endowed with 
the necessary strength of will, they are certain to meet with 
numberless hindrances, caused by the envy and fear of the 
enemies of progress. They will spend their energies and 
lose their reputations in vain efforts, and the ills of the 
body politic will remain uncured. On the other hand, 
Marquis Ito, as the experienced minister of a foreign gov- 
ernment, who possesses Your Majesty's fullest confidence, 
and who is well known to fame, could have nothing to fear 
from intrigues in the task of introducing reforms. And 
foreign powers, in their international relations with China, 
would begin to treat our country in a very different manner. 
Their schemes of aggrandizement at our expense would 
instantly relax, and this would be the beginning of the 
transformation of China from a poor and weak country, 
surrounded with dangers, into a land full of wealth and 
strength, and rejoicing in the blessings of assured peace. 
This is the first reason why we must borrow talent from 
other nations. 

" The fundamental principles of Chinese policy are isola- 
tion and separation, whilst among Western nations the 
principles of government are the very opposite of these, 
namely, intercourse and union; principles which serve to 
bring about the development of moral and material re- 
sources, while isolation and exclusion lead to the very 
opposite result. To these two principles, intercourse and 



THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM. 73 

union, the nations of the West are indebted for their 
greatness and civilization. 

" From the geographical point of view, nations inhabiting 
the same continent should first unite among themselves. 
From the point of view of race and language, it is best for 
kindred peoples to be joined. The peoples of Europe and 
America do not inhabit the same continent as ourselves; 
they belong to another race, and speak other tongues. 
Therefore, in view of these natural obstacles; they cannot 
be closely united with China. It is quite otherwise with 
Japan. Although, carried away by her extremely rapid 
progress, and that unexpected development which roused 
the apprehensions of both Europe and America, Japan made 
war on China, yet, when confronted by Russia, Japan was 
helpless. It is true that, in order to counterbalance Russia, 
Japan is making friends with England; but experienced 
men of affairs are convinced that war between them cannot 
be averted in the future. Whichever side wins, there will 
be great changes in the balance of power in Asia. England 
approached Japan solely because of Russia; England is 
foreign to us in race ; she is foreign to us therefore in spirit 
also. What if England, whose sole motive is profit, should 
find it profitable to change sides and enter into an alliance 
with Russia? Then Japan, standing alone, would certainly 
perish. Therefore Japan's natural ally is China. If the 
Celestial Empire, with its vast natural resources, its huge 
area, its enormous population, should really enter into an 
alliance with Japan, borrowing from Japan new methods 
for the development of China's resources, and for the educa- 
tion of competent men, then Japan and China together, in 
firm union and alliance, could easily withstand either Russia 
or England, and assure a general peace. This would secure 
the integrity of the Chinese Emperor's hereditary domin- 
ions, and put an end to foreign encroachment. The designs 
of foreign nations can only be withstood by the material 
might of China, acting under the moral and intellectual 



74 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

guidance of Japan. Russia cherishes designs of encroach- 
ment on the north; as regards England, which is striving 
to maintain peace and gain its own ends, its demands make 
Russian policy necessary, but in reality England's designs 
are wholly commercial and selfish. If an alliance existed 
between China and Japan, Russia could doubtless carry out 
her design of a Congress in the interests of universal peace, 
and could enter into enduring and peaceable relations with 
the other nations of Europe. This is not only very desirable 
for China and Japan, but it is an object worthy of the 
sincere aspiration of the whole human race.'' 

At this point a temporary stop was put to the 
Chinese dream of regeneration by the interposi- 
tion of the Conservative party, under the leader- 
ship of the Dowager* Empress Tshu-Chsi. This 
very remarkable woman is the widow of the 
Emperor I-Tshu, and was co-ruler with the 
Emperor Chai-Chun from 1861 to 1875, when 
Kuang-Hsu nominally ascended the throne, being 
then three years old. As a result of her interposi- 
tion, the Imperial Gazette announced, as we all 
remember, that the Emperor found it impossible 
to deal unaided with the vast mass of administra- 
tive affairs in the present critical condition of 
the Empire, " and requested Her Majesty, the 
Dowager Empress, who had twice directed the 
affairs of China with marked success, to lend him 
her guidance in the conduct of imperial business." 
Then came three edicts : First, the quite credible 
announcement that the young Emperor '' was 



THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM. 75 

very sick;" then, that several reforms were post- 
poned, the famous Six Boards being reinstated; 
and, lastly, a series of vigorous measures directed 
against the young Emperor's advisers. Finally 
it was declared that, as of yore, the Empire would 
be governed according to the principles of the 
sage Confucius. 

One of the principles of this sage is obedience 
to parents; and we must take into account the 
enormous moral weight this obligation has in 
China before too hastily accusing the young Em- 
peror of cowardice and supineness. But time is 
on his side. 

It is always a delicate matter to speak of a 
lady's age, especially if that lady be an Empress ; 
but the masterful Dowager is not far from the 
patriarchal three score years and ten, while her 
right-hand man, the hardly less masterful Li 
Hung Chang, is seventy-five. These two are 
certainly among the twenty most considerable 
personalities in the world at this moment, a suffi- 
cient evidence that the Chinese race is not eflfete. 
But mortality will claim its own, and then will 
come the turn of young Kuang-Hsu. If it comes 
even four or five years hence, he will be only 
about thirty, and his character will have matured 
in the meantime. I have quoted two Chinese 
documents at length, in order to show that, if we 



T^ THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

are counting on the moral and intellectual in- 
feriority of the Chinese, we are suffering from 
a dangerous illusion. Therefore the success of 
the young Emperor's plans is quite a probable 
event ; and that success will mean a huge revenue 
for China; a vast army and fleet on the most 
modern models, with skilled officers, probably 
Japanese; a quite unlimited power to subsidize 
Chinese manufacture against all the world's com- 
petition, with a working class of hundreds of 
millions ready to accept marvellously low wages 
and quick to master the cheapest and best meth- 
ods. In a word, it would mean the possible 
swamping of Western lands, in a military as well 
as a commercial sense. So that the policy of the 
door which may open outwards is about the most 
dangerous for the West that could well be con- 
ceived. 

Charles Johnston. 



POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES IN CHINA. 



POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES IN CHINA. 

The map of China is bewildering, but inter- 
esting. It shows the first empire of the w^orld 
in population and the third in area — more than 
400,000,000 people in 4,300,000 square miles. 
It reveals a wonderful winding coast-line of 
2,000 miles, facing seas teeming with commerce 
and trade. Populous cities are located along 
every few days' journey, and landlocked harbors 
make frequent indentations. Into the vast in- 
terior run great navigable waterways, with in- 
numerable lesser tributaries and canals. Few 
high mountains break the surface, and the con- 
formation of the land is plainly adapted to sup- 
porting countless millions of people. Travel in- 
land from the treaty ports adds to the interest 
aroused by study of geographical plates. There 
is little to disappoint, because there is much to 
pleasantly surprise. China may be deemed bar- 
baric by the unthinking foreigner, but the ob- 
serving student everywhere finds evidence of 



8o THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

former civilization, and discovers potentialities 
for future development. 

The government may be weak, but the people 
are still virile. The lack of material progress is 
largely responsible for China's stagnant con- 
dition. She long ago reached the limit under 
her ancient system of education, law, govern- 
ment, transportation, and comm.erce. What she 
now needs is the quickening touch of the ma- 
terial hand, protected by an enlightened admin- 
istration of government, law and order. We 
must be charitable toward China. Her short- 
comings may be largely attributed to dry-rot, 
which may characterize any older government, 
and which, in lesser terms, is so often found in 
long-established but wealthy business houses. 

Reorganized in absolute independence or 
under foreign protection, China may become, in 
another generation, one of the first-class Powers 
of the world, in fact as well as in theory. She 
may rival and surpass the record of Japan. She 
has the natural resources, the population and the 
location necessary for a brilliant development. 
With the interior gridironed with railways, 
canals dredged, river bars deepened, mines 
opened, roads built, likin and '' squeeze'' taxes 
abolished, all ports and points open to foreign 
trade, and honest administration inaugurated. 



POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES. 8i 

China will astound the world with her capabili- 
ties. Possibly she is now on the verge of giving 
us that welcome surprise. 

What is to be the outcome of the present 
crisis? It would seem that it must be one of the 
following possibilities : First, China may be ex- 
periencing a narrow escape from permanent 
'* break-up/' by which she will receive the last 
warning that will arouse her from the lethargy 
of the past, and, imitating Japan, make her be- 
come a mighty Asiatic power. Second, she may 
be forced by the combined moral and physical 
influence of foreign nations to reorganize her 
government under their temporary direction and 
guidance, and so eventually save her integrity. 
Third, she may be placed under a joint protec- 
torate of the Powers until she shall prove 
whether she will be able to stand alone under 
new conditions or must be partitioned among 
them. Fourth, she may be divided into ad- 
mitted spheres of influence, where each Power 
will be supreme, and actual sovereignty will re- 
sult in time. 

It is to be sincerely hoped that the first may 
be possible, but, if not, the heroic method of the 
second or third may be necessary. The last is 
least desirable, but the most threatening. The 
general belief of the lay world seems to be that 



82 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

the '' break-up" of the Empire is at hand, and 
therefore laymen as well as heads of foreign 
offices are reported as contemplating how such 
division of China would afifect each nation. I 
say the last suggestion is the least desirable, be- 
cause it seems least adapted to protect Ameri- 
can interests, and means the end of one of the 
greatest empires in the world's history which is 
deserving of a better fate. A wide realm where 
America now has equal rights of trade with 
every other foreign nation, and where uniform 
duties prevail, would be ruthlessly parcelled out 
among European nations which are competitors 
with us for the Chinese markets, and would 
have a distinct advantage over us, even if they 
did not apply tangible discriminating duties. No 
two sections would have like tariffs. Conditions 
of commerce would vary according to the char- 
acteristics and methods of the controlling 
power. We might be safe and even better of¥ 
in the Yang-tse Valley, but entirely shut of¥ in 
Shengking, Shansi and Shan-tung on the north, 
or in Kwangtung and Kwangsi on the south. 
The negotiations of Secretary Hay should pro- 
tect our rights even if China be divided, but dip- 
lomatic assurances of the present may be newly 
interpreted under future changed conditions. 
Possession is nine-tenths of the law. What 



POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES. 83 

policy Russia, France and Germany might fol- 
Iq,w when their respective spheres become sov- 
ereign domain would, I fear, be little influenced 
by their present " open-door'' promises. True, 
if these theoretical divisions remain purely and 
simply '' spheres of influence," we should be 
safe; but the moment the evolution into areas 
of sovereignty is completed, we will not be able 
to depend on any former treaty rights, but only 
and entirely on our capabilities for successful 
competition in spite of local tarififs. 

The cotton manufacturers of America, espe- 
cially those of the Southern States, are more 
concerned than any other export interests. 
Their trade in North China, the seat of the pres- 
ent " Boxer" troubles, has grown in ten years 
from $1,600,000 to $10,000,000, and bids fair, 
under favorable conditions, to grow to $25,000,- 
000 in the near future. They fear that if Russia 
obtain absolute possession there will be discrim- 
ination in this particular section in favor of the 
new cotton-mills of southern Russia, and that 
they will eventually be crowded out, where 
under Chinese sovereignty they would be safe. 
Russia's diplomatic promises on this point may 
sound honest, and they may be honest and sin- 
cere at the present, but no one can tell what will 
be the influence of the Russian cotton-spinners 



84 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

on a new ministry. If Secretary Hay has safe- 
guarded American interests into a possible 
period of sovereignty, he has indeed won a no- 
table victory. Let us hope that he has suc- 
ceeded on this very point, and that future events 
will attest his foresight. 

I must admit, on the other hand, that I 
take a more optimistic view of Russian influence 
than many others. It would seem to me that 
throughout Russia, and especially in Asiatic 
Russia, the United States is to find one of its 
largest and most remunerative markets. Russia 
is just entering on a period of material develop- 
ment, which will make immense demands on 
both our raw and manufactured products. The 
effect of the completion of the Trans-Siberian 
Railway will be everywhere awaited with pro- 
found interest, but the cost of such a long land 
haul of freight to Eastern Siberia and China will 
always give an advantage in favor of our prod- 
ucts shipped across the Pacific direct, or by the 
Nicaragua Canal from New Orleans and New 
York. 

Before discussing what may be the territorial 
limits of spheres of influence or areas of control, 
it is well to bear in mind several influences that 
will tend to keep China intact. First, she has 
survived many other shocks, some of which 



POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES. 85 

were as severe as this, notably the brief wars with 
Japan, France and England, and former rebel- 
lions. Second, the Powers of Europe and Japan 
are keenly jealous of each other, and will admit 
of no division that is not satisfactory. They 
may even become engaged in international war, 
and China be the least sufferer. Third, the 
United States, which in a way holds the key to 
the moral situation, is opposed to any aliena- 
tion of territory, while Great Britain and Japan 
maintain the same attitude. Fourth, there is a 
large element of very able men in China, despite 
common opinion to the contrary, that have suf- 
ficient statesmanlike qualities to govern China 
wisely and successfully. These would be sup- 
ported by a considerable part of the population 
that is ready to take active interest in public 
afifairs, if there be no danger of political exile or 
punishment. Who can doubt the ability of such 
men, for instance, as the eminent Chinese Min- 
ister at Washington to take the lead in guiding 
China out of her present difficulties? Fifth, it 
will be found that China's particular weakness 
in the present trouble is the lack of national 
police, or of organized forces of law and order, 
such as a well-trained army. If she had pos- 
sessed even a small, trustworthy, well-disciplined 
force under foreign officers, the present riots 



86 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

could have been put down at the moment and 
place of inception. The rest of the world would 
hardly have noticed the disturbance. 

Therefore, if China will immediately reor- 
ganize her essential forces of order throughout 
the Empire, she will take the first principal step 
to preserve her integrity. 

Further study of the map of eastern Asia will 
assist in comprehending the extent of possible 
spheres of influence. We will assume that Rus- 
sia, Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan and 
possibly Italy are the Powers that would share 
in any spoliation of Cathay. Russia first inter- 
ests us because of her territorial preponderance 
on the north and her aggressive policy in Man- 
churia. Were China divided Russia's allotment 
would probably include all Manchuria, with an 
area of 364,000 square miles and population of 
10,000,000; Mongolia, with an area of 1,300,000 
square miles and population of 2,000,000; East 
Turkestan and Jungaria, with 550,000 square 
miles and 1,000,000 people. With these she 
would also claim the northern province of Chi-li, 
in which Peking and Tientsin are located, and 
which has an area of 115,000 square miles — as 
much as the Philippines — a population of 20,- 
000,000, and a frontage on the gulf of Pechili. 
Altogether, Russia's sphere would include an 



POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES. 87 

area of 2,300,000 square miles, or equal to two- 
thirds of the United States proper, and a popu- 
lation of 43,000,000. 

Germany, beginning with Shan-tung, would 
demand the hinterland of Shansi, Shensi, 
Honan and Kansu, with a combined area of 
406,000 square miles and a population of 76,- 
000,000. She would require the southern end 
of Chili to connect Shan-tung with the hinter- 
land, but Russia could easily grant that conces- 
sion. Control of this section of China would 
give to Germany the greater part of the valley 
of the Hoangho and a considerable portion of 
the Grand Canal. 

Great Britain has always laid claim to the 
Yang-tse Valley as the natural thoroughfare and 
connection through China to her Indian posses- 
sions, and as the section in which she has done 
the most to develop commerce and resources. 
Were this apportioned to her, she would control 
part of Kiangsu on the coast, Anhui, Hupeh, 
part of Kiangsi, Hunan, Szechuan, Kweichau, 
part of Yunnan, and also portions of Kwangsi 
and Kwangtung, to connect with Hongkong 
and Kowloon at the mouth of the West River. 
The area occupied would exceed 800,000 square 
miles, and contain a population of 190,000,000. 
If Russia were given all Mongolia and Tur- 



88 THE CRISIS IN CHINA/ 

kestan, Great Britain, in order to protect India, 
would claim Tibet, including Koko Nor, with an 
area of 650,000 square miles and a population of 
6,000,000. 

France, from her position in Tonkin and An- 
nam, would be allotted all that portion of 
Kwangtung and Kwangsi south of the West 
River, the island of Hainan and southern Yun- 
nan. This would well round out her Asiatic de- 
pendencies, and give her an added area of 160,- 
000 square miles, or larger than France proper, 
and an increased population of 30,000,000. 
Canton, the populous capital of southern China, 
would be included in British territory. 

Japan would claim the rich province of 
Fukien, which is just across the channel from 
her possession of Formosa. With it she might 
acquire portions on Kiangsi and northern 
Kwangtung. Fukien has within its limits the 
large prosperous cities of Fuchau and Amoy. 
Her Chinese spoils would aggregate 25,000,000 
in population and 50,000 miles in area. Japan, 
moreover, would be a thorn in the side of Rus- 
sia and Germany, and when they were demand- 
ing vast portions of China she might quietly in- 
sist on annexing the major portion of Korea. 

Italy would ask for fertile Chekiang, on whose 
coast is located San-mun Bay. This province 



POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES. 89 

has an area of 35,000 square miles and a popula- 
tion of 12,000,000, and includes the ports of 
Ningpo and Hangchau. 

Glancing at a few more details of possible 
division, we note that Great Britain would prob- 
ably hold that part of the Shan-tung promontory 
in which Wei-hai-wei and Chefoo are located. 
Russia would not only control Peking, Tientsin 
and Taku, but Niuchwang, one of the important 
gateways to Manchuria. Here again Japan 
might interfere and claim territory in the gulf of 
Pechili, and possibly insist on having part of 
Chi-li. 

America should resist with all her moral in- 
fluence such parcelling out of the Empire, and 
may prevent it. She cannot declare war on 
European nations in order to save China; she 
can accomplish more by a firm, peaceful than by 
a belligerent attitude. She should insist on her 
rights, but not join in a scramble for territory. 

Through all this crisis and its ultimate solu- 
tion, America must stand for the integrity of the 
Empire, and the '' open door'' as guaranteed by 
the original treaties with China and confirmed 
by the recent negotiations of Secretary Hay. 

America's direct trade with China amounted 
in 1899 to $33,000,000, or one-tenth of the total 
foreign commerce of $330,000,000. This is an 



90 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

increase of lOO per cent, for America and China 
respectively in ten years. If we include $io,- 
000,000 trade with Hongkong we have the com- 
paratively large annual total of $43,000,000 
with China, which makes us third in the race. 
We follow Great Britain and Japan, but lead 
Russia, Germany and France. On the ground of 
commerce we have more right to interfere at 
Peking than the Continental Powers of Europe. 

In face of the immediate necessity of protect- 
ing life and property, it is well to remember fur- 
thermore that America has more at stake, exclu- 
sive of ceded or leased ports and army garrisons, 
than any other nation except Great Britain. 

As the original treaty conception of the '' open 
door'' is hazy to many who have not taken the 
trouble to study the question, I will quote the 
wording of our first convention with China, con- 
cluded July 3, 1844, at Wang Hiya and nego- 
tiated by Caleb Gushing : 

'' Citizens of the United States resorting to 
China for the purposes of commerce will pay the 
duties of import and export described in the 
tariff, which is fixed by and made part of this 
treaty. They shall in no case be subject to other 
or higher duties than are or shall be required of 
the people of any other nation whatever . . . 
and if additional advantages and privileges of 



POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES. 91 

whatever description be conceded hereafter by 
China to any other nation, the United States 
and the citizens thereof shall be entitled there- 
upon to a complete, equal and impartial partici- 
pation in the same/' 

Later treaties, including that of Tientsin, con- 
cluded June 18, 1858, by William B. Reed, that 
of Shanghai, concluded November 8, the same 
year, by the same plenipotentiary, that of Wash- 
ington, July 28, 1868, by William H. Seward 
and Anson Burlingame, and that of Peking, No- 
vember 17, 1880, by James B. Angell, all con- 
firmed or enlarged upon these rights first 
granted. 

John Barrett. 



THE GATHERING OF THE STORM. 



THE GATHERING OF THE STORM. 

China is not a savage land, her people are not 
barbarians. Her hoary civilization, however, has 
rusted out. Civil order is a sine qua non in a 
self-governing, self-respecting State. It is my 
purpose to deal with lawless occurrences which 
have taken place in various parts of China during 
the last two years; which are matters of record, 
and about which there is no doubt or exaggera- 
tion. It might be concluded from these occur- 
rences that all foreigners in China have been in 
imminent peril. But, in point of fact, the vast 
majority of merchants and missionaries, whether 
in port cities or in the interior, have been undis- 
turbed in their rights. Nevertheless, it is also 
clear from the facts that no one knows when mob 
violence will stop at his door. 

Lord Charles Beresford told us when here, and 
has since written down, the revelations of in- 
capacity and supineness made to him by the high 
officials of China. Though this supineness has 



96 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

long been painfully apparent, yet no such official 
acknowledgment of it has ever before come to 
light. It shocks one to know that the Prince- 
President of the Tsung-li-Yamen, the Viceroys 
ruling Kiangsu, Anhui, Kiangsi, Hupei, Hunan, 
Fukien and Szechuan provinces and others, admit 
their inability to protect foreigners or foreign 
interests in China. Lord Beresford was led to 
the conclusion that " there is no real security for 
commerce throughout the whole of China." 

The outrages have not been directed against 
any one class of foreigners. Arson and murder- 
ous assault have been indiscriminately perpetrated 
upon diplomatists, consuls, missionaries, scien- 
tists, customs officers and business men. Roman 
Catholic priests and convents, however, have been 
rather more often the victims of the malice of the 
people. In travelling in all parts of China many 
of these outrages on foreigners have been person- 
ally investigated by the writer. 

At Shasi, in Hupei province, above Hankow, 
mobs sacked and burned the Imperial customs 
house and residence, the Japanese Consulate, a 
mercantile store-ship and the Swedish mission. 
The foreigners escaped in boats on the Yang-tse. 
The riot was, apparently, premeditated and care- 
fully planned. On the same night, four hundred 
miles from Shasi, placards having called for the 



THE GATHERING OF THE STORM. 97 

expulsion of the " foreign dogs," and the officials 
*doing nothing to prevent outrage, the mission- 
aries escaped from the mobs which held both the 
roads, and drifted away in a rowboat. 

Near Peking, the chief engineer of the Imperial 
Railway, an officer of the British Legation, and 
a major of the English army, while inspecting 
a portion of the new railway, were attacked by 
Chinese soldiers, badly bruised, and left in a 
bleeding condition. Soldiers also attacked Mr. 
Demston's house, and, killing one servant, looted 
the place. At Mentze, in Yunan, the French con- 
sulate was recently plundered, and the Imperial 
customs burned to the ground. 

The province of Szechuan was, in 1899, for 
months in a state of anarchy, and the officials in 
a state of innocuous desuetude. The rebellion of 
8,000 men, headed by Yu Man-tze, had for its 
express purpose the driving out of the foreign 
'' dogs and goats." The brigands attempted to 
extirpate the Christians of the province. Father 
Fleury was captured by Yu Man-tze, and, during 
the eight months of his captivity, was carried 
from place to place, and wherever Christians were 
found Yu had them brought before Father Fleury 
and murdered at his feet. Such instances as the 
following have been the order of the day in 
Szechuan. At Shunching, the mission house was 



98 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

torn to pieces, the mission buildings razed to the 
ground, the missionary hunted for his Hfe. At 
Hopaochang, the mission was looted, the chapel 
burned, two priests captured, two servants killed, 
one Christian family plundered. At Hochow, the 
buildings of the mission were burned ; at Kweifu 
the mission ruined. The city of Kiangpeh is 
across the river from the open port of Chungking. 
A new dispensary had been opened, and two 
Chinese medical students were temporarily in 
charge of it. The place was looted and one 
student was killed. '' The powerlessness of the 
mandarins at such a crisis is really astonishing, 
and one is forced to ask if they are just as power- 
less as they appear to be." Lord Charles Beres- 
ford was told that Yu and his followers had 
burned four thousand houses and thirty chapels; 
that over 20,000 Catholics had been sent adrift, 
and property destroyed to the extent of $4,150,- 
000. This amount is undoubtedly overstated, 
however. 

An example of what such a state of affairs has 
meant to the individual may be seen in the case 
of Mr. Parsons, of the Church Missionary So- 
ciety. He left Chungking to go back to his post 
at Paoning, with an escort of four soldiers. In 
crossing a river in a ferryboat, he saw a body of 
troops on the opposite bank. They raised the cry, 



THE GATHERING OF THE STORM. 99 

" Kill the foreigner/' When the boat reached the 
bank his escort fled, and the boat was over- 
whelmed with soldiers belonging to Yu Man-tze. 
Mr. Parsons was attacked with swords and 
knives, and, though he could swim but little, he 
threw himself into the river. Catching at a 
floating bamboo, he kept his head above water, 
and drifted with the stream, while the soldiers 
followed in a boat, prodding at him in the water. 
At length he got on board of a Chinese gunboat 
and was saved. But the officers and men of the 
gunboat showed no opposition to the rebels or 
their murderous assault, and did everything short 
of violence to keep him from getting on the boat. 
Passing from Szechuan to Kuichow province, 
we must refer to the murder, on the public high- 
way, of Mr. Fleming, of the China Inland Mis- 
sion, and of the Chinese evangelist who was with 
him. '' The evidence received from Kueiyang 
proves that the murder was deliberately planned 
by the gentry and officials,'' and yet the demand 
of the British Minister at Peking that the gov- 
ernor of the province be degraded, was flouted. 
At the city of Paoching-fu in Hunan, last Sep- 
tember, a missionary called at the prefect's 
Yamen. A mob of between four and five thou- 
sand men assembled and demanded the foreigner. 
He escaped at the rear in a boat. But the mob, 

tofC. 



100 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

in their attempt to get him, pulled down the first 
buildings of the Yamen's court. Penertrating to 
the inner court with lighted torches, they fired the 
great edifice of two hundred rooms, and plundered 
the chests in the treasury of $14,000. 

In the north of Anhui^ Honan and Kiangsu 
provinces, there has been a serious armed rebel- 
lion. The walled cities of Shuchou, Mengcheng, 
Meaoerchi and Kuyang were besieged and fell. 
Niu, the leader, butchered about two thousand 
men, women and children at the capture of Ku- 
yang. The city gates of Hsuchou were '' deco- 
rated with several hundred queues and scalps'' — 
the Red Indian's style of civilization ! It is be- 
lieved that over 50,000 people lost their lives in 
this rebellion, which was in the Yang-tse basin, 
as was also the one in Szechuan. In Anhui prov- 
ince, Mr. Cook, manager of the Pochishan coal 
mines, had trying times. Two hundred natives 
tried to hang him, and, failing in that, to throw 
him down the shaft of the mine. After a desper- 
ate struggle he escaped. 

The working of silver mines near Ningpo has 
been fraught with danger. The Fenghua magis- 
trate decided to settle matters with the town of 
Sungao. The result was that his soldiers were 
disarmed and imprisoned by the townsmen, the 
official himself was nearly stripped of his clothing. 



THE GATHERING OF THE STORM. loi 

and his official chair was added to a bonfire. The 
foreigner in charge of the mine fled to the coun- 
try. The course of the miner in China is a tur- 
bulent one. 

The province of Shan-tung has been much 
disturbed during the year. Missions were burned, 
the^houses of Christians pillaged, the Christians 
were harried, persecuted and murdered. Three 
Germans, officers and gentlemen, were murder- 
ously set upon by an unprovoked mob, and they 
saved themselves only after shooting down some 
of the rioters. Foreigners in the midst of this 
upheaval wrote : '' The local officials are powerless 
to punish the offenders." '' There is practically 
no guarantee for the safety of the lives and prop- 
erty of foreigners residing in the interior of 
China." This state of affairs resulted in German 
troops seizing and occupying a walled city or two, 
a hundred miles from the coast of Shan-tung. 
Their treatment of the Chinese was drastic but 
salutary, and, as a result, order is being restored. 

Still another open rebellion — this one in south- 
ern China — has been quieted wath difficulty. In 
Kuangsi province, about 7,000 men were in arms. 
The cities of Yunghsien and Peilin were '" pil- 
laged and dismantled," and many other places 
were laid low. The proclamation of one Chang 
is significant of the objective of this rebellion: 



102 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

" I, Chang, obeying the orders of Heaven to 
gather all the braves and heroes together, with 
a special view to seek revenge for the people, to 
drive away the foreign devils and to protect 
China, have assembled over 300 philosophical 
scholars, about 3,000 military officers and more 
than 30,000 brave soldiers." And a whole prov- 
ince in South China was under their sway for 
several months. 

Turning from southern China, I must refer 
to the region on the Yang-tse of which Tchang 
is the port city. Here rioting was mostly directed 
against the Catholic Christians. Chapels were 
burned, Christians robbed and their lands wrested 
from them. One priest, followed by 1,000 con- 
verts, travelled to Tchang for safety. The ban- 
dits had this legend on their banners : '' Destroy 
the foreigner and advance the dynasty." They 
meant what they said, as the story of young, 
accomplished Father Victorian shows. This 
Belgian priest was located about 100 miles from 
Tchang. The bandits wrecked the mission, mur- 
dered the Christians, captured Victorian and hung 
him to a tree. '' As this poor man hung from the 
tree to which he was tied, pieces were cut from 
his thighs and eaten by his tormentors. . . . 
Finally his body was cut open, from the chest to 
the bottom of the abdomen ; he was disembowelled, 



THE GATHERING OF THE STORM. 103 

and the various organs were taken out and eaten 
by these semi-civiUzed people, who at the same 
time drank his blood. He was also mutilated in 
a way that cannot be described, and his head was 
cut off/' This was penned by a person at Tchang 
who saw Victorian's body. 

And, later on, comes the premeditated assault 
on the missionaries of the Church Missionary 
Society at Kienning, in Fukien province, near 
where the massacre occurred a few years ago. 
At Kienning the mob destroyed the church, the 
mission house, the dispensary, the leper asylum, 
looted the hospital, and beat the brains out of an 
aged Christian, throwing another Christian into 
a well. The officials gave Dr. Rigg and his asso- 
ciates no protection whatever, though the city had 
been placarded for several days to the effect that 
the foreigners were to be kjlled. Following the 
attack on the mission, bills were freely posted, in 
the name of the literati, calling on the people to 
" rise and kill every foreigner," and urging that 
the native Christians should be " hunted down 
like wild beasts or highway robbers, and rooted 
out until not one remains." 

We return again to the consideration of the 
situation in North China. United States Minister 
Conger told me, a few months ago, that he was 
really apprehensive for the safety of Americans 



I04 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

in Shan-tung and Chi-li. Since that time the 
Righteous Harmony Fists have extended their 
organization, large numbers of soldiers and others 
have joined their ranks. The whole Manchu 
military force in northern China is said to be in 
sympathy with them. The Rev. Mr. Brooks has 
been murdered, hundreds of Christians have had 
their houses burned, while many have been killed 
in cold blood; portions of the Lu-Lan and the 
Tien Tsin-Peking railways have been torn up, and 
marines have been landed from the available ships 
of war. The avowed and applauded object of 
the Boxer organization is to drive out the '' for- 
eign devils." 

I have written enough, though not all. What 
are some of the deductions? (i) The instances 
cited have occurred in twelve out of the eighteen 
provinces of China; it is therefore not a local 
condition. (2) These attacks have been made 
on all classes of foreigners. Foreigners were to 
be killed or driven out. (3) The Missionaries 
suffer most, because, according to treaty, mission- 
aries only have the right to reside in the interior. 
(4) Of attacks on missionaries, two-thirds, or 
more, are directed against Roman Catholics. 

The Treaty of Tien Tsin (article VIII.) says: 
'^ Persons teaching or professing it (the Christian 



THE GATHERING OF THE STORM. 105 

religion), therefore, shall alike be entitled to the 
protection of the Chinese authorities; nor shall 
any such peaceably pursuing their calling, and not 
offending against the law, be persecuted or inter- 
fered with." Does it need more proof than has 
been adduced to show that this treaty protection 
is often without force? I know of no case of 
assault or pillage or murder where the Chinese 
authorities have lodged the claim that the for- 
eigner thus maltreated had broken over his lawful 
rights. They confess negligence and attempt to 
make reparation, but that does not restore life. 
No missionary in China deserts his work for fear 
of outbreaks. Merchants do not look with favor 
on risks which are quadrupled and trade which 
is constantly disturbed. But the question which, 
we believe, deserves attention is this : What is to 
happen if civil order continues to become more 
chaste, and the incompetence of the Chinese Gov- 
ernment is still more disgracefully shown ? There 
are over one thousand missionaries in China. 
The American vested and business interests there 
are also great. Should there not be a clear na- 
tional policy as to what America will, or will not 
do to meet the catastrophe into which China is 
fast drifting? This is a question not of partition, 
but of civil and treaty rights. As long as China 



io6 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

is treated as a '^ going concern," the line of opera- 
tions is easily seen; but what is to happen when 
the government is recognized as a gone concern ? 
That day seems to be approaching. 

Robert E. Lewis. 
Shanghai, China. 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. 

In order to appreciate the commotion in 
eastern Asia, which is in various ways agitating 
the whole world, it is essential to bear in mind 
that it is the product of two predominant fac- 
tors, to which all collateral agencies are subor- 
dinate and accidental. It is no new problem 
which has been suddenly sprung upon the 
world, but only the denouement of one which has 
been anticipated for fifty years and more. Nor 
is there any lack of prophetic record buried in 
government archives, in old periodicals and in 
shelved books. If there has been a slackening 
of categorical forecasts in the last few decades, 
it is simply because the voice grows weary of 
crying in the wilderness. 

The two generative factors in the Far East- 
ern development to which we refer are, of 
course, Russia and China, which possess be- 
tween them, in an altogether peculiar degree, the 
procreative properties which evolve great 



no THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

events. Each is, in many essential respects, the 
complement of the other. In bulk they are ap- 
proximately well matched; in territorial con- 
tiguity they are joined by 3,000 miles of com- 
mon frontier. These primary physical condi- 
tions admit of the freest interaction of their cor- 
relative forces. Russia possesses the vigor of 
youth, and is constantly and preternaturally ag- 
gressive. China is decadent, paralyzed and 
fatalistically passive. These are ominous con- 
trasts, but they by no means exhaust the cata- 
logue. China is a rich possession. Russia is 
comparatively poor; her civilization is primitive; 
she has not reached her full stature, and she is 
confident in her own power to dominate and ap- 
propriate the resources of her gigantic but inor- 
ganic neighbor. Given the juxtaposition of two 
such human agglomerations, might it not be 
said that Nature herself was working for their 
fusion? The temptation to intermingle is, in 
fact, irresistible. As the barbarians looked down 
on degenerate Rome, so do the modern Goths 
regard with wistful eye and watering mouth the 
defenseless sheepfolds of the Chinese. China 
lies like a vast terrestrial depression with a body 
of water pent up alongside of it; and therein lies 
the essence of the Far Eastern question. 

No doubt the active stage of this chronic 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. in 

question which has recently startled the world 
was hurried on by the aggressive proceedings 
of third parties. Japan it was who first disturbed 
the equilibrium, and brought on an acute phase 
of the malady. The subsequent action of Ger- 
many, renewing the disturbance before it had 
had time to subside, created a fresh eruption. 
Both these inroads, lawless and unprovoked as 
they must be considered, were made because of 
the helplessness of China, and whatever plea of 
political justification may be claimed for either 
of them hangs upon the hypothesis that they 
were only anticipations of the aggressive action 
of Russia. It was the calculated movements of 
that power and the known impotence of China 
that determined, and will continue to influence, 
the proceedings of the other Powers. 

Before either Germany or Japan had been 
called into being as world Powers, the Far East- 
ern problem which occupied studious observers 
was substantially the sam.e as it is to-day. The 
forecasts of two serious students of contempo- 
rary history published between forty and fifty 
years ago have recently been cited in the Eng- 
lish press. The authors happened to be both 
British Consuls in China, Sir Rutherford Al- 
cock and Mr. Taylor Meadows, men who were 
too far in advance of their own generation to 



112 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

attract the notice they deserved. The two men 
had Httle in common, and they arrived at their 
one conclusion independently and by somewhat 
different roads. 

Their prognosis was singularly confirmed by 
another equally good authority, also in advance 
of his time. This was the late Edward Cunning- 
ham,* head of the leading American firm in 
China, a gentleman distinguished for the catho- 
licity of his views, no less in the conduct of or- 
dinary business than in matters of interest to the 
community of which he formed a part. It is de- 
serving of mention that it was Mr. Cunningham, 
in his capacity of chairman of the Shanghai 
Chamber of Commerce, w^ho organized and 
raised the funds for those journeys of scientific 
exploration undertaken by Baron F. von Rich- 
thofen in 1870, which have shed so much light 
on the material condition of the Chinese Em- 
pire. For these explorations have supplied the 
data for all geological, mineralogical and stra- 
tegic speculations about China on which the dis- 
cussions of the present day are founded. It 
must be conceded that the man who so clearly 
grasped the prospective value of such discoveries 



* Mr. Cunningham met his death, at the hands of an 
Italian poacher, within his own grounds, near Milton, 
Mass., in 1889. 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. 113 

as to be willing to pay for them '' cash in ad- 
vance" was no mean authority on the political 
evolution of the section of the world with which 
he was personally acquainted. What Mr. Cun- 
ningham thought of the relations between Rus- 
sia and China in 1869 was lucidly set forth in a 
memorial which he presented to the United 
States representative, on the subject of a revision 
of the Chinese treaty which was then under con- 
sideration. 



" As for a policy of ' generosity ' as affecting the destinies 
of the Empire in the interests of the people, one smiles 
either with contempt at the credulity, or admiration at the 
audacity, of such an exponent of their principles. These 
views of the progressive tendency of the Chinese rulers of 
to-day are, of course, asserted in the interest of these rulers, 
as, if foreign nations could be brought to believe them, they 
would leave the Chinese to develop in their own way. There 
being in truth no will, there would be no way; but still, as 
regards the rulers alone, they would be relieved from pres- 
sure and so gain their immediate object. 

" Whether they would gain ultimately depends upon the 
disposition of Russia. If China stood isolated in the world, 
the forbearance of all might be an advantage. Shouldered 
as she is by so powerful and aggressive a neighbor, it may 
be that the only effective protection for the present dynasty 
is in the intimacy with the other Western Powers. 

" If it can be made to appear that the Russians have the 
will and the power to occupy China, it will be granted that 
there is at least a strong likelihood of that great event com- 
ing to pass. As to the will there is no proof, of course. 
One can judge by analogy. They have extended themselves 



114 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

in Asia wherever they have had an opportunity, and they 
have recently conquered and annexed the Kingdom of Bok- 
hara at great cost, completing the extension of their do- 
minions in that quarter to the borders of British India, a 
boundary which they must accept as final in that direction. 
The difficulties in that enterprise were greater, and the 
advantages not to be mentioned, as compared to those to be 
incurred or gained in the acquisition of China. In the ac- 
tual direction of this Empire they have taken and occupied 
with forts within a few years the great tract of country lying 
between the Amur and the present frontier, without any 
advantage in the region itself to attract them, and appar- 
ently only for the object of reaching nearer to China 
proper. They obtained a valuable port upon the coast, but 
that they could have had without the costly annexation of 
so great a territory. 

" They have more young men learning the Chinese 
language, in one way or another, than all the other West- 
erns together, and they push their traders into the country 
with a pertinacity quite uncalled for by the exigencies of 
their trade. 

" Finally, there lies before them a prize unparalleled in the 
history of the world. A nation of, at least, 200,000,000 of in- 
dustrious, energetic and ingenious people, ripe for conquest, 
and capable, when conquered, of giving inexhaustible sup- 
plies of excellent soldiers and sailors ; a nation poor, indeed, 
in resources at present, but capable of a miraculous resurrec- 
tion under an energetic rule. A country full of natural 
wealth, with an immense area of fertile soil already under 
cultivation; with a system of navigable rivers unsurpassed 
in the world; a coast abounding in fine harbors, and com- 
manding this side of the Pacific ; a dominion reaching to the 
tropics, and including in its wide embrace every climate and 
almost every valuable production of the earth. 

" It is impossible that, with their antecedents, their set- 
tled policy for centuries, the Russians should fail in desire 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. 115 

for such a prize as this. As for the power, unless succored 
by other Western nations, the country would lie defenseless 
before the assault of 50,000 men led by a general skilled in 
modern war. Such succor, if it came at all, would probably 
come too late. By occupying the western and northwestern 
provinces under one pretext or another, and with the dec- 
laration that it was provisional and temporary, they could 
finally reach the coast and have possession of the main 
strategical points, with 200,000 or 300,000 Chinese soldiers 
under arms and in effective condition before any European 
Power would have concluded to intervene. Their conclu- 
sions then would be uninteresting. 

" In view of this greatest of hazards, it would seem to be 
the natural policy of the government to cultivate as close 
relations with other Western people as possible; to intro- 
duce them into the country; to accept their inventions and 
improvements ; to obtain foreign arms and equipments ; to 
train an army to the European standard of elfficiency and 
under European officers. These are the steps which would 
be pressed on the Chinese authorities by their well-wishers, 
and sedulously followed up, if they wish them to maintain 
even their present position. 

" It may be, however, that with great interests of human- 
ity, foreign representatives may not have the prosperity of 
the present dynasty and government really at heart. Of 
this I do not pretend to judge. They may feel that nothing 
will elevate the Chinese people and place the country fairly 
in the path of progress and reform but the government of a 
Western power. It does, indeed, seem impossible that any 
real good can come from the selfish and apathetic race of 
rulers that now misgovern the country, and in the interests 
of the millions who suffer from their incapacity or perver- 
sity, foreign powers are perhaps bound to withhold advice 
or suggestion that may delay the hour of deliverance. If 
such is the case, no course seems so wise as to leave them as 
much as possible to such seclusion as they can keep, and to 



ii6 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

their present narrow policy. With no Western influence 
but Russia in the interior, and no advisers but their anti- 
quated maxims, they will drop the easier prey into the lap 
of their vigorous neighbors — a friend or enemy, as he chose 
to take the part, and as, circumstances recommend. 

'' Whether Russia will do good or evil to the world at 
large when she has an army of 2,000,000 on the Pacific, and 
a revenue to match, is a further point for consideration, but 
much beyond my province to discuss. I only express my 
conviction that such a course of things is not only possible 
but likely, if the Chinese inclination to resist progress and 
to hold Western nations at arms' length is allowed to con- 
trol events." 

And now within thirty years we see the almost 
literal fulfilment of this prediction. 

A short reference to the occasion of Mr. Cun- 
ningham's memorial will help to elucidate the 
whole Chinese question as it stood then and as 
it stands now. The Treaties of Tien Tsin, con- 
cluded in 1858, contained a proviso that their 
terms might be revised in the Tariff and Com- 
mercial Articles, at the instance of either party, 
at the end of ten years. The British Treaty, be- 
ing the first in importance, was in process of re- 
vision, for which great preparations were made 
during 1867 and 1868. These preparations took, 
partly, the form of memorials from the various 
mercantile bodies dotted along the coast and 
rivers of China. But the terms of the Chinese 
Treaties with all the Western Powers were such 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. 117 

as to render it virtually impossible to revise one 
without revising all, because of the '' most fa- 
vored nation'' clause, which entitled each Power 
to claim whatever might be granted to any 
other. The obvious efifect of this proviso was to 
vest the power of veto in the smallest state that 
had made a treaty with China. Consequently, 
the British negotiation necessarily assumed a 
cosmopolitan character, the representatives of 
other Powers being kept informed, point by 
point, as progress was made, as well as being fre- 
quently consulted in advance. Hence, there 
was nothing out of the way in an individual 
American merchant's communicating his views 
to his own Minister for the use of the British 
Negotiator, and it came about quite naturally 
that Mr. Cunningham's Memorial formed part 
of the voluminous record of the negotiations 
archived in the State Department and in the For- 
eign Office. 

The revision of the treaties at that time 
hinged upon one fundamental question, which 
had been seriously pondered by the British Gov- 
ernment, with the result that a mature decision 
had been arrived at respecting it. The true 
bearing of that question is more clearly percep- 
tible now than it was thirty years ago — for it has 
not really altered, but remains essentially the 



ii8 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

same question. It was simply whether pressure 
should be applied to the Chinese Government, 
either to secure fulfilment of existing treaties or 
to induce reasonable concessions in the revision 
of them. Up to that time nothing had ever been 
obtained from China without pressure, and the 
general consensus of opinion was that nothing 
ever would be obtained without it, not even re- 
dress for outrages and injuries. Pressure had 
always succeeded; persuasion never. Lord Elgin 
had left it on record that the Chinese yield noth- 
ing to reason, everything to fear; and the drama 
which has been played in Peking during the year 
1898 has afiforded daily accumulating proof of 
the truth of that famous dictum. 

It was morally certain, therefore, that no re- 
vision of treaty — except in a retrograde sense — 
would be effected by mere argument. It was 
with this knowledge that the British Govern- 
ment entered on the revision campaign. The 
Chinese, on their part, also fully realized the 
conditions under which they entered on diplo- 
matic negotiations which they could not openly 
decline, and, a very unusual thing for them, they 
made preparations for it, whether on their own 
initiative or on the prompting of their foreign 
advisers may remain an open question, though 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. 119 

the form and manner of the defensive prepara- 
tion might be safely assigned to a foreign origin. 
But, however that may be, at an early stage of 
the revision proceedings the Chinese Govern- 
ment resolved to send an envoy to Europe and 
the United States for the purpose of persuading 
the treaty Powers that the case was precisely the 
reverse of that stated by Lord Elgin. The en- 
voy was, in fact, to inform the governments of 
the West that the Chinese would yield nothing 
to fear, but everything to reason ! The agent 
appointed, or, rather, the spokesman of the two 
Chinese envoys who formed the mission, was 
the Hon. Anson Burlingame, at that time Minis- 
ter of the United States to China. He sailed 
from China to San Francisco in 1868, and thence 
proceeded to Washington. He was completely 
successful, and induced the United States Gov- 
ernment to make a kind of convention with him 
which practically consisted of two provisions; 
one, that the United States would under no cir- 
cumstances apply pressure to China; the other, 
that China would employ Americans to build 
their railways. Mr. Burlingame proceeded next 
to London, and converted Lord Clarendon to 
the same passive policy toward China, obtaining 
from him a similar self-denying declaration to 



120 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

that which had been given by the Secretary of 
State in Washington. 

The effect of these gratuitous declarations on 
the negotiations in Peking was marked and in- 
stantaneous. The hope of any hberal extension 
of the treaties was extinguished. The British 
Minister told his government so in plainer terms 
than are altogether usual between servant and 
master. '' If it was difficult," wrote Sir Ruther- 
ford Alcock, '' to negotiate for large concessions 
before the assurance authoritatively given by 
your lordship's communication to Mr. Burling- 
ame, ... it is now out of the question to 
hope for more than has already been conceded. 
. . . Strong in the assurance of two of the 
great treaty Powers, ... it is quite certain 
that no further progress can be made at pres- 
ent." In other words, '' you have stultified your 
agent, frustrated his efforts, and given away the 
interests of the country." The position was at 
last recognized by Lord Clarendon himself, who, 
in the autumn of 1869, wished to abandon the 
negotiations over which two years' labor had 
been expended, in the hope that, when the time 
came for other Powers to revise their treaties, 
Great Britain might retain an '^ open door" to 
profit by their negotiations. 

The point of all this is that it is the policy die- 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. 121 

tated by Burlingame* and accepted blindly by 
the cabinets of Washington and of London, 
which has been followed by the two countries 
for the last thirty years. And it is this particular 
policy which has brought China to the verge of 
anarchy and disruption. For it was a public re- 
nunciation of influence over the government. 
On the most favorable view that could be taken 
of it, it was a negative, sterile policy, devoid of 
authority, a law without a sanction. It was 
ruinous to China, because the withdrawal of the 
Powers who had an interest in the preservation 
of that country left her open to the designs of 
those Powers whose interests, or at least desires, 
lay in a contrary direction. While England has 
been fettered by her self-imposed total ab- 
stinence dogma, the destroyers of China have 
been free to revel in the prosecution of their 
schemes. Which is the actual position to-day. 

The recovery of British influence is no child's 
play, for it means a reversal of the policy of a 
whole generation of statesmen. It is like gather- 
ing up water that has been spilt on the ground. 
This gives us, perhaps, the best key to the atti- 
tude of Her Majesty's government during the 



* It was Mr. Burlingame's plea for a policy of " gen- 
erosity " that Mr. Cunningham alluded to in the opening 
sentence of the extract from his Memorial above cited. 



122 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

present year. It was in the position of a steamer 
in a fog, called on suddenly to reverse the en- 
gines, and running on to one obstacle while hur- 
riedly avoiding another. Lord Salisbury him- 
self pleaded this excuse at the Union Club, that 
his government had been taken aback by the 
rapid progress of events, and that it was no easy 
task for them at a moment's notice to discard 
the policy of Cobden, which had been the law of 
the land for half a century. There was some- 
thing pathetic in the naive confession that the 
dead hand of Cobden was still paralyzing the 
government of Great Britain, condemning it to 
conduct the business of the country on pious 
theories, which forbade it from taking any ac- 
count of accomplished facts, and from adapting 
its course of action to the new developments of 
the world's life. 

Of course, a wider sense is here given to the 
convenient term " Cobdenism," than the mere 
abolition of custom houses. The Cobdenism 
with which Lord Salisbury, Mr. Balfour and 
their supporters are so deeply infected extends 
over the whole field of national economics, and 
it has a serious meaning for all democratic coun- 
tries. The events which are transpiring in dis- 
tant parts of the world are putting popular gov- 
ernment on its trial. England is in fact feeling 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. 123 

the strain of a new conflict, which will shortly be 
felt in a less, though constantly increasing, de- 
gree in the United States also. So long as the 
interests of a nation are kept within a ring-fence, 
no device of man could be more conducive to 
the happiness and prosperity of a community 
than government by the people. ''What favor 
can we show you?" said Sir Robert Peel to the 
merchants of London. '' Let us alone," was the 
city's manly response. The legislation of Eng- 
land during the present century has been a con- 
tinuous demolition of the barriers which checked 
the free action of the people; and it is not to be 
doubted that, under the perfect liberty thus ac- 
corded to them, the national prosperity has 
made remarkable strides. Industrial and com- 
mercial progress in the United States has, of 
course, from the nature of the case, been vastly 
more rapid, and that in spite of sundry self-im- 
posed restraints on trade from which the British 
people are free. The system that conduces so 
greatly to individual enterprise and wealth is no 
less conducive to the collective good of society 
at large. Cobdenism, if we may continue to use 
this convenient term, besides being faultless in 
theory, is also triumphant in practice, so long as 
no disturbing element intervenes. 

Where the scheme fails is in the fact that, on 



124 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

the great chess-board of the world's trade and 
poHtics, disturbing elements do and must inter- 
vene, in this case turning a domestic success into 
a foreign failure. Cosmic evolution itself has 
brought about conditions wholly unforeseen by 
Cobden, and still unrecognized by his disciples. 
Industrial and commercial competition have 
entered on a new phase. The isolated efforts 
of innumerable individuals are now opposed by 
compact forces marshalled by powerful govern- 
ments. In their struggles with such combina- 
tions, traders and manufacturers who go a-war- 
fare on their own charges must expect to be 
worsted. Adventurers, who enter the field with 
the whole machinery and resources of their 
national governments not only at their back, but 
in the van of their enterprises, possess advan- 
tages such as an organized army would possess 
against a host of volunteers. The full disclosure 
of the new species of international competition 
has been reserved for this present year, and the 
theatre of the discovery has been that great un- 
exploited field of commerce, China. There we 
have seen, in a variety of aspects, the victory of 
action over inaction, and we have seen the supe- 
riority, in certain spheres of competition, of 
governments which lead their people, over 
people who lead their governments. While the 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. 125 

rulers of Russia, Germany, France and even Bel- 
gium have been heading national crusades of 
productive enterprise in China, the governments 
of Great Britain and the United States have held 
aloof, and allowed rights and claims to be estab- 
lished to their perpetual exclusion and detri- 
ment. The British Government has had nothing 
to oppose to these aggressive movements but 
Cobdenic maxims treated as if they were axioms 
of geometry, such as the " open door," " equal- 
ity of opportunity," and so forth, which were 
never more than empty phrases, the survival of 
a state of things that had passed away. Minis- 
ters have again and again defended their inac- 
tion by pleading the novelty of the situation and 
the absence of precedents. The principle of 
non-interference with industry and commerce, 
and of leaving everything to individual initiative, 
no doubt fits like a glove the theory of popular 
government ; and the principle of laissez aller, in 
relation to other nations, is one which lends it- 
self easily to academic defense, while offering no 
offense to abstract morality. The only objection 
to these principles is that they do not harmonize 
with the facts of national life. 

In this mercantile world in which we live 
everything has to be paid for, and government 
by the people for the people forms no exception 



126 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

to the rule. Priceless as are its benefits, a price 
has still to be paid for them, and part of the 
price is incoherence, slowness of collective ac- 
tion, vacillation and ignorance in dealing with 
international affairs. The most prosperous 
countries are, naturally, those in which the citi- 
zens have no leisure for public questions which 
lie remote from their daily life, and who are only 
too content to resign their international interests 
to the governments of their choice. Hence, a 
breach of continuity in the management of af- 
fairs, the government waiting for the people and 
the people for the government. Thus vital 
national interests fall between two stools. This 
lapse of responsibility is easily traced in Great 
Britain, where the initiative, in former times ex- 
ercised by government, has been step by step 
surrendered, as the tide of pure democracy has 
risen, so that now, when an emergency arises, 
there is no one ready or competent to deal with 
it. The state then is in the condition of an emi- 
grant ship in a hurricane, left to the helpless de- 
vices of the passengers. The United States is in 
a somewhat similar predicament, with this dif- 
ference, that, their interests being mostly at 
home, they have not as yet suffered visible injury 
for the neglect of their concerns abroad. 

Observe now in what a different position such 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. 127 

countries as Russia and Germany stand, whose 
governments hold in leash the national forces, 
military, diplomatic and political, in readiness to 
strike at a moment's notice, with no popular 
voice or even national impulse to wait for. Re- 
publican France, even, enjoys a freedom of action 
scarcely inferior to her autocratic neighbor, for 
the people expect no consideration in foreign or 
colonial enterprises, which are consequently left 
to the discretion of the executive government and 
to the initiative of official adventurers. When, 
therefore, the Far Eastern question was opened 
by the Japanese war, these Powers promptly 
cleared for action, while England remained wrapt 
like a mummy in the cerements of a worn-out 
policy, unable to move hand or foot to safeguard 
her interests — actual or prospective. The fetish 
of non-interference in China had no chance 
against the energy of Powers who were inspired 
by a passion for aggression. Under the sway of 
this passion, China is being carved up like a sir- 
loin of beef, as if there were no vitality in her. 
The ambition of Russia soars far above the mere 
military occupation of Manchuria or of the prov- 
inces of northern China. She makes straight 
for the brain centre of the Empire, paralyzing its 
functions. She is loosening the keystone of the 
arch, in order to find her account in the debris 



128 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

of the Structure. The process of disruption is in 
full action. In view of this, France, Germany 
and Japan are in haste to secure as large as pos- 
sible a share of what they consider to be a 
crumbling building, before the northern Colos- 
sus engulfs the whole. 

But none of these Powers has caused to con- 
sider what the disruption of a polity embracing 
300,000,000 of Asiatics really means; for, even 
in the cynical and un-Christian epoch in which 
we live, only professed anarchists would be so 
anti-human as to lend a hand to accelerate such 
a calamity. In their greed for gain, however, the 
spectacle of a helpless nation and an effete govern- 
ment is too strong for moral restraint. We know 
something of what anarchy in China means, for 
we had experience of it some forty years ago, 
when hundreds of its cities were converted into 
cover for wild beasts, and tens of millions of lives 
were destroyed without cause. The commercial 
nations have the strongest interest in preventing 
the recurrence of such colossal devastation. Put- 
ting their motives on the very lowest and, there- 
fore, the more lasting grounds, a depopulated 
country is of no use to the trader. On the other 
hand, China kept on her legs is a living mine of 
wealth to all those nations who are interested in 
the prosecution of honest trade. 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. 129 

The commercial nations, par excellence, are the 
Anglo-Teutonic, whose interest, in spite of an . 
occasional freak of hot-blooded Kaisers, or the 
like, is not to break up old '' China," but rather, 
if possible, to rivet the cracks in it. By the intro- 
duction of such improvements as railways, steam- 
boats, mining and manufactories, by the infusion 
of the Western spirit as a new nervous force into 
the country, and of Western principles of action, 
the resources of China, in men and material, 
would be rendered capable of providing fertile 
employment for white men for centuries to come. 
This is the great undeveloped estate which the 
present generation of Anglo-Saxons have to leave 
to their ever-increasing offspring, an inheritance 
richer far than all the prairies and all the gold 
mines in the w^orld, because crowned with a 
wealth of humanity of the most efficient quality, 
an enormous hive of industry only needing di- 
rection, and with capacities for consumption 
commensurate with their unrivalled powers of 
production. Had the British and American people 
been sufficiently alive to the value of this prize, 
when China was thrown into the crucible in 1894, 
they would have insisted on their governments 
safeguarding those precious interests, and not 
permitting the Chinese Empire to be sequestrated 
at the hands of the despotic and military states of 



130 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

Europe. What has been done cannot be undone, 
but the rapid progress already made in disintegra- 
tion furnishes an imperative reason for conserving 
what is left. The practical question is, how is 
this to be done? 

China is in the condition of an invalid whose 
life can only be saved by transfusion of healthy 
blood. The system has to be cautiously and 
carefully revived, not by violence, but by tact 
and patience. A new order has to be evolved out 
of the present chaos, under which the prosperity 
of the nation may advance pari passu with the 
legitimate interests of the foreign peoples who 
seek their fortune in the country. The desidera- 
tum cannot be more intelligibly indicated than by 
saying that it is foreign capital and foreign enter- 
prise that are needed to preserve and to fertilize 
this valuable field of commerce. China wants her 
communications to be opened up, her industries 
organized, her hidden wealth brought to the 
surface, her natural products utilized. And as, 
according to the traditional order of procedure 
of the English-speaking races, as well as of their 
Teutonic and Scandinavian kinsmen, the enter- 
prise of the people precedes and draws after it 
the protection of their governments, it follows 
that the infiltration of capital and skilled direction 
into China is the proper lever by which the govern- 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. 131 

ments of Great Britain and the United States may- 
be moved to interest themselves actively in the 
welfare of that country. Only by such a policy 
can the predatory Powers be kept from ravaging 
the country and precipitating anarchy and red 
ruin among the largest population on the face of 
the earth. Every line of railway, therefore, every 
steam factory, every hole dug in the ground in 
the interior of the Chinese continent, under either 
British or American auspices, is a solid gain to 
the whole commercial world. It is " effective 
occupation" of the genuine kind, the only kind of 
occupation that will save the territory from being 
staked off into exclusive areas, that will keep the 
door open for the free intercourse of all nations. 
Consequently, the concession of a railway between 
Canton and Hankow to an American syndicate 
is an event of happiest augury, just as every step 
taken toward connecting western China with 
British India contributes to the establishment of 
free intercourse for all. Such concrete material 
interests lie at the root of national policy, and 
constitute the surest means of compelling the 
attention of our governments to the course of 
events in China. From whichever side we regard 
them, these are conservative as well as progressive 
measures ; like mercy, twice blest, benefiting the 
people of China by opening out fruitful channels 



132 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

for their labor, while at the same time affording 
productive fields for the creative energy of the 
West. 

Far Eastern affairs have never loomed large 
before the people of the United States, for the 
simple reason that their business connections there 
were by comparison infinitesimal and practically 
stagnant. A sympathetic interest in Japan was, 
indeed, aroused on the opening of the Island 
Empire through the instrumentality of an Ameri- 
can naval squadron and a capable diplomatist, and 
a fair amount of genuine business has sprung up 
between the tw^o countries. But still the aesthetic 
has prevailed over the commercial relation with 
Japan, while in China American diplomacy has 
been mainly occupied in damming back the flood 
of Chinese immigrants which was supposed to be 
threatening the interests of white labor. But a 
vast change has come over the scene during the 
last six months, and never was it made clearer 
tHat a nation's course is marked out for it by 
circumstances often unforeseen, than in the revo- 
lution which the events of this year have made 
in some of the fundamental dogmas of American 
policy. May we not say, '' There's a divinity that 
shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will," 
when we see the United States, by the necessary 
sequence of her own acts, forced into the position 



THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS. 133 

of an oceanic and an Asiatic Power ? The course 
marked out for her by philosophical students of 
the map of the world, to which she seemed in- 
different if not coldly averse, has been suddenly 
forced on her by the inexorable logic of events 
of her own making. Henceforth, her status as 
mistress of the Philippines and of the Sandwich 
Islands imposes on her the necessity of taking 
a hand in the game that is to be played in the 
western Pacific. Fortunate that the question was 
not delayed until the gates of China were closed 
and the resources of that Empire parcelled out 
among the anti-commercial nations ! The Pacific 
Ocean acquired a new significance for the United 
States when the Spanish war broke out and while 
the battleship " Oregon" was rounding Cape 
Horn. That was an object lesson which came 
home to the least imaginative. It doomed the old 
ocean thoroughfare. It brought the Isthmian 
Canal within the range of practical politics, it 
gave a new turn to American speculation, widened 
the national outlook — in a word, it made the 
United States a world power in posse. Fortunate, 
we say, that all this happened before China had 
been disposed of (for without China the Philip- 
pines have no meaning), since it confers on the 
United States the dignity of a great mission as 
well as the opportunity for great national enlarge- 



134 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

ment. China is a world necessity, and civilization 
cannot aifford that she should become a mere 
carcass round which the vultures of the world 
shall gather. 

Archibald R. Colquhoun. 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY AN 
. INFLUENCE IN THE CHINESE 
QUESTION. 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY AN 

INFLUENCE IN THE CHINESE 

QUESTION. 

The immense and sparsley populated country 
of Siberia was for a long time merely an acci- 
dental adjunct of the Russian Empire. Its sole 
importance to the latter lay in the fact that it 
supplied valuable furs and precious metals. In 
spite of its enormous extent, its fertility and its 
various natural resources, it attracted very few 
Russians who possessed land in their own coun- 
try. The population consequently increased but 
slowly. 

The first emigrants to Siberia were men who 
were at variance with the conditions of life in 
their native country, and were obliged to leave it 
either of their own free will, or otherwise. To 
the majority of Russians, Siberia remained an 
inhospitable land, and its very name called up no 
other thought than that of cold, exile and dreary 
drudgery. Time, however, slowly but surely 



138 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

effected an improvement in the relations between 
Siberia and the mother country. On the one 
hand, the increasing population of Russia in 
Europe required more room, and this was to be 
found in the uninhabited parts of Siberia. On 
the other hand, the propagation of more exact 
information about its natural wealth and great 
fertility soon modified public opinion, and what 
had seemed but a land of exile began to exercise 
the allurements of a land of promise. 

At that time the community of interests be- 
tween Russia proper and its colony became daily 
more distinctly felt, and Siberia began to be of 
more vital importance to the former. Side by 
side with this slow economical evolution, a radical 
change took place, in the middle of this century, 
in the views of the governing bodies concerning 
Russia's political interests in Siberia. Simul- 
taneously with the annexation of the Amur, Pri- 
morsk and Usuri territories, and the opening of 
Japan to foreigners, Russia firmly established 
herself on the shores of the Pacific and took steps 
to consolidate her power there. The time had 
now come when the government had to face the 
main obstacles which prevented closer intercourse 
between the two countries, retarded the solution 
of Russia's political problems in Asia and stood 
in the way of the normal development of the 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 139 

region. These obstacles were time, distance and 
the vast extent of Siberia. 

The only way to overcome these obstacles was 
by the construction of a railway throughout the 
whole extent of Siberia. This idea was first 
mooted about 1850, but the Russian Government 
for a long time hesitated to undertake the execu- 
tion of this project, through apprehension of the 
immense expense it would entail. However, the 
present Minister of Finance, M. Witte, had the 
requisite faith in Russian financial resources. 
Being appointed Minister of Ways and Com- 
munications at the beginning of 1892, he rapidly 
conducted surveys of the railway line; and then, 
becoming Minister of Finance at the end of the 
same year, he insisted on the immediate construc- 
tion of the great Siberian Railway. 

According to the original plan, the direction 
of the Siberian Railway was to be as follows : 

Kilos. 

From Chelyabinsk to Omsk, West Siberian Railway 1,415 

From Omsk to Irkutsk Central Siberian Railway. . . 1,828 

From Irkutsk to Missoyaga, Baikal Railway 318 

From Missoyaga to Stretensk, Transbaikal Railway. 1,076 

From Stretensk to Khabarovka, Amur Railway 2,132 

From Khabarovka to Vladivostok, Usuri Railway. . . 764 

Some time later, two very important changes 
were made in this original scheme. 



140 THE CRISIS IN CHINA, 

In consequence of the great technical difficulties 
presented by the Baikal line, and in order to accel- 
erate the construction of a continuous railway 
through Siberia, it was decided to make a straight 
line from Irkutsk to Lake Baikal. The train was 
to cross the lake on special ice-breakers, similar 
to those in use between Lake Huron and Lake 
Michigan in America. In consequence of even 
greater difficulties presented by the Amur line, 
permission to construct and exploit a railway in 
Manchuria, connecting the Baikal line with 
Vladivostok, was obtained by the Russo-Chinese 
Bank from the Chinese Government. Thus the 
estimated length of the Siberian Railway was 
reduced by about 550 kilometres. In March, 
1898, the Chinese Government permitted the 
construction of a branch to Port Arthur and 
Ta-lien-wan, and in this way the Siberian Railway 
acquired two outlets to the Pacific, of which one 
is free from ice all the year round. 

Though the project of constructing the Amur 
Railway was now left in abeyance, yet the junc- 
tion of Vladivostok with Khabarovka was ef- 
fected, and thus Russia will soon have both an 
uninterrupted railway route through Manchuria 
and a combined railway and waterway in the 
direction of Irkutsk, Stretensk, Shilka, Amur, 
Khabarovka, Vladivostok. The construction of 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 14I 

the railway is very rapidly advancing, and the 
West Siberian, Central Siberian and Usuri lines 
actually are completed and opened for traffic. On 
the other portions, work is being carried on very 
energetically. 

Let us now glance at this country, of which so 
little is known, and consider the present and pros- 
pective results of the construction of the railway. 
Siberia occupies 5,000,000 English square miles 
in the northern part of Asia. Its natural features 
are very varied. The western and northern parts 
of this enormous country consist of a level plain : 
in the north, the lifeless swamps (tundra) merge 
into a large tract of virgin forest. Further south, 
this is succeeded by rich steppes, which resemble 
the pampas, and extend to the mountains which 
occupy the southern and eastern part of Siberia. 

The polar tundra zone occupies all the space 
north of the sixty-fourth degree of latitude. It 
is a swampy plain covered with moss and bush 
and frozen during the greater part of the year. 
Its soil never thaws to a greater depth than one 
foot, and consists of alternate layers of frozen 
earth or pure ice. Anything approaching civilized 
life is out of the question in this desolate land. 
Its sole inhabitants are a few nomadic tribes, who 
eke out a living by fishing, hunting and the breed- 
ing of reindeer. 



142 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

The region between the fifty-seventh and the 
sixty-fourth degrees is covered with thick virgin 
forest, consisting of ancient cedars, larches, pines 
and other species of firs. Further south we find, 
in addition to these, birch, poplar, aspen and even 
linden trees ; a great quantity of berry-bearing and 
other bushes increase the variety of plants, and 
hops and other climbers winding round the trees 
remind one of the virgin forests of America. In 
this vast region, with its boundless forest wealth, 
habitable spots are chiefly found on the banks of 
the different rivers. 

To the south of this forest tract, we find a culti- 
vated belt of land, very spacious in the west and 
much resembling a steppe. It extends as far as 
the mountains which stretch along the south of 
Siberia. The steppes of Western Siberia have 
the appearance of plains, covered with luxurious 
vegetation and birch groves. The soil is rich and 
fertile, and tends to promote the development of 
agriculture and settled life. In these steppes, 
there are large water basins like Lake Chany, 
surrounded by smaller lakes. 

The Siberian mountains extend along the 
southern border of Siberia and then occupy its 
whole eastern part. They are remarkable for 
their beautiful views. Many picturesque spots in 
the Altai Mountains and Semiretchensk might 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 143 

be compared with those of Switzerland, and the 
Irtish flowing through the mountains resembles 
the Rhine. 

Siberia extends from the Arctic Circle right 
away to the steppes of Central Asia, and therefore 
presents many varieties of climate. There are the 
perpetual frost of the lifeless tundra deserts, the 
tropical heat of Central Asia, the genial climate 
of the favored spots at the foot of the Altai 
Mountains, the balmy air in the oases of the Chui 
Valley and Lake Issik-Kul and the striking south- 
ern vegetation of the banks of Amur. Owing 
to those climatic variations, we meet with the 
most startling changes in natural features, and an 
amazing variety of flora and fauna. 

Siberia possesses four great river basins, which 
are equal to those of the largest American rivers. 
Three of them — Obi, Yenisei and Lena, with their 
numerous tributaries — greatly facilitate the trade 
of the interior, and the fourth river, the Amur, 
facilitates intercourse between Central Siberia 
and the Pacific. 

The population of Siberia consists of very vari- 
ous elements. After the bloody and rapid conquest 
of Siberia, it became for some time an El Dorado 
for hunters and gold diggers. Like the Spaniards 
in America, these were attracted by the thirst for 
gain, and they treated the natives with the most 



144 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

barbarous cruelty and plundered in the most irra- 
tional manner the natural treasures of the country. 
Some time later these rough and ready pioneers 
were succeeded by exiles. These were but few 
in number at first, but latterly there were as many 
as 18,000 to 20,000 yearly. The introduction of 
this element was of sinister import for Siberia. 
It was forced to accept criminals, who had been 
driven forth from their own country and who, 
hardened in their wickedness, could not but have 
a contaminating influence on the people they came 
among. Fortunately for Siberia, at the same time 
with this artificial colonization, a natural coloniza- 
tion was advancing, for men who had been un- 
fortunate in their native land were attracted by 
the free life of Siberia and made their way thither 
in small but steady numbers. From these men, 
who had proved themselves enterprising and of 
great physical and mental vigor, the present popu- 
lation of Siberia has been evolved. It embodies 
all the best characteristics of the daring adven- 
turers and conqiiistadores who first subdued it; 
of the exiles and emigrants, who went there in 
such numbers, and of the Cossacks and peasantry, 
whom the government induced to settle there by 
the offer of large subsidies, hoping thereby to 
promote the development of agriculture. The 
unaided struggle with stern Nature called all their 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 145 

hardier qualities into play. The result is a vigor- 
ous, enterprising type, not unlike that which we 
meet with in the United States, Canada and 
Australia. 

The Russian population of Siberia moved 
farther and farther eastward from the Ural 
Mountains through the southern part of Siberia ; 
at present it occupies a broad, unbroken belt of 
land, which narrows down toward Lake Baikal. 
Small branches are found on the banks of the 
chief rivers, the Obi, the Yenisei, the Lena and 
the Usuri, and extend from the basin of the last 
to the shores of the Bay of Peter the Great. 
Besides this, little Russian communities are scat- 
tered about in different places. 

The indigenous Mongol, Finnish and Tartar 
tribes of Siberia, which occupy immense tracts, 
are much smaller in number than the Russian 
population, whom they surround on all sides. 
Immediately beyond the Ural and north of the 
region entirely occupied by Russians, there lives 
the tribe of Voguls. Further north and northeast 
we find Siberian Tartars, Ostyaks, Samoyedes, 
Tunguses, Yakuts, Yukahirs, Koryaks, Tchuk- 
tchis, Kamchadales and Guiliaks. With the ex- 
ception of the Tartars, who are partly settled, 
these are all nomadic tribes, and are engaged in 
hunting, fishing and cattle raising. In the extreme 



146 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

north, reindeer breeding is carried on. South of 
the region occupied by Russians, there are settled 
Siberian Tartars, Kirghizes, Altayans, Kalmuks, 
Soyots and Buriats, who Hve only by cattle breed- 
ing and agriculture. Some of these elements of 
the Siberian population such as Tchuktchis, 
Guiliaks, Kamchadales, who are not amenable to 
the influences of civilization, are very scant in 
number, and will most likely die out altogether; 
others, such as Kirghizes and Buriats, on the con- 
trary, are important ethnographical unities, and 
give promise of increased vitality. 

The mineral wealth of Siberia, particularly in 
its eastern part, is fabulous ; its extent is far from 
being finally determined, but it is certain that its 
treasures are almost inexhaustible. The area of 
its auriferous regions is much larger than that 
of the celebrated gold mines of California, Aus- 
tralia and Africa taken together. Beginning from 
the Alatau Mountains, of which both slopes are 
very rich in gold, this auriferous region extends 
eastward along the northern slope of the Saiansk 
Mountains in an almost continuous broad strip. 
Then it continues across both slopes of the Stano- 
voi and Yablonoi Mountains right away to the 
extreme east of Siberia. The extensive gold 
deposits of the Yenisei, Olekma, Vitim, and many 
other river systems, constitute, as it were, an 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 147 

immense addition to the chief gold area. Up to 
the present, gold has almost exclusively been ob- 
tained from sand. Mining of gold ores is carried 
on in the Yenisei, Altai and Transbaikal district, 
but only to a very small extent, owing to the 
difficulty of working and the lack of mechanical 
appliances. 

In many parts there are lodes of copper, silver 
and lead. Those found on the branches of the 
Saiansk and Alatau Mountains, in the district of 
Nertchinsk and the Kirgiz steppe are particularly 
remarkable. The quantity of metal contained in 
the ores varies greatly. Silver, lead and copper 
mining reached a high point of development last 
century, but within the past twenty-five years this 
industry has begun to fall off, chiefly owing to the 
rise in the price of labor. 

Iron and coal exist in great quantities through- 
out the whole extent of Siberia, from the borders 
of the Government of Orenburg to the mouth of 
the Lena, to Kamtchatka, the Island of Sagalien 
and the frontier of Korea. At the present time, 
coal is worked only in the Kuznetsk basin, on the 
Island of Sagalien and in the Kirgiz steppes. It is 
also proposed to exploit the coal beds recently dis- 
covered in the southern part of the Primorsk 
province. These have been surveyed and found 
to be very rich, and to contain some quantity of 



148 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

anthracite. Contiguous veins of coal and iron were 
found in some places, foundries were formed, but 
these have been in anything but a flourishing 
condition until quite lately, owing to the small 
demand for their output and their remoteness 
from the markets. 

In western Siberia, common salt is extracted 
from the self-depositing lakes, which occur in 
considerable numbers in the southern portion of 
the steppe region lying between the forty-sev- 
enth and fifty-fifth degrees of north latitude, and 
the sixty-third and seventy-third degrees of east 
longitude (from Paris), which was once the bot- 
tom of a sea basin. In the northern portion of 
this salt basin, which embraces the Barabinsk 
^nd Kouloundinsk steppes, the salt lakes always 
contain a greater or less amount of other salts 
besides common salt. There are many lakes 
which contain rich layers of glauber salt only. 
In eastern Siberia there are very rich beds of 
rock salt, but the best salt springs and layers are 
found in thinly inhabited districts, so that trans- 
port to the markets is very expensive, owing to 
the want of proper means of communication. 

Besides all this mineral wealth, tin, mercury 
and sulphur are found in the Transbaikal terri- 
tory; naphtha on the Sagalien Island and many 
kinds of precious stones, such as lapis-lazuli, 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 149 

topaz, beryl, aqua-marina, etc., in the Trans- 
baikal territory. 

In the basin of the Yenisei, large deposits of 
graphite are found. From experiments made in 
America this seems to excel the Ceylon variety 
in purity. 

Siberia has long been famous for its fur-bear- 
ing animals and the teeming wealth of its rivers 
and lakes. After agriculture and cattle breed- 
ing, fishing and hunting are the chief pursuits of 
the inhabitants. The shooting and trapping of 
squirrels is at present the main object of the 
chase. In the northern part of eastern Siberia, 
where the slaughter of fur-bearing animals has 
not * been quite so wholesale as in western 
Siberia, more valuable fur-bearing animals, such 
as the marten, ermine, sable, fox and arctic fox, 
are caught. Beavers, which formerly existed in 
Kamtchatka, are now very rare, but the fur in- 
dustries in the waters washing the Russian 
shores of the Pacific are much more important 
at present. Among the most important is the 
seal industry, which is specially developed on 
the Commandorskie and Pribyloff Islands, the 
former belonging to Russia, the latter to 
America. From 1871 to 1891, 730,539 seal skins 
came into the market from Russian territory 
alone. Besides seals, the northern and eastern 



150 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

waters of Russia are very rich in sea calves, 
whales, sea lions and other marine animals. 

The supply of fish in Siberia, and particularly 
in the rivers falling into the Pacific and North- 
ern Oceans, is almost inexhaustible. The Sea 
of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan abound in fish. 
The more valuable species of fish, kinds such as 
sturgeon and salmon, are so plentiful that while 
making their periodical progress from the seas 
to the rivers, they force each other on to the 
bank whenever the stream happens to be shal- 
low. Capital is so scarce, means of communica- 
tion so scant, and the natives know so little of 
fish curing, that only so much fish has been con- 
sumed hitherto as was required locally, the re- 
mainder being sent to Japan by Japanese traders. 

Notwithstanding the immense wealth of 
Siberia, manufacturing industry and trade have 
not been able to develop themselves to a corre- 
sponding extent, owing to the thinness of the 
population and the absence of cheap and suitable 
means of communication. Consequently, though 
there have been repeated attempts on the part 
of the government and private individuals to 
estabHsh industry on a large scale in Siberia, 
manufactories and w^orks have been started there 
only with the greatest difficulty, and only such 
have succeeded as served to meet the modest 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 151 

wants of a small local population or produced an 
article of such value that it could bear the cost of 
carriage to a great distance. 

Such was the general condition of the coun- 
try at the time when the construction of the 
great Siberian Railway heralded the dawn of a 
new era. 

Though the Hne will not be finished till 1902, 
some instances have already come to light which 
prove what a great civilizing effect it will have 
in future. Among others we may note the rapid 
increase in the population. As we have already 
mentioned, the Russian Government long ago 
took various measures to attract pure Russian 
elements to Siberia. At present the Russian 
Government deems it very necessary to consoli- 
date Russian national feeling there in view of a 
possible invasion of the region by the yellow 
race in the near future. The government has, 
therefore, taken this matter under its direct con- 
trol, propagating exact information about Si- 
beria, publishing special maps on a large scale, 
preparing and adapting sections of land for the 
settlement of immigrants by the help of local 
government agents. Such places as still remain 
uninhabited, owing to their wild character, are 
carefully explored. There is yet but little land 
available for colonization, and which could be 



152 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

granted to newcomers without encroaching on 
the reserves of the old inhabitants, whether Rus- 
sian or indigenous; and the greater part of these 
lands is already occupied. 

Therefore, the government has now permitted 
the occupation of tracts less suitable for culture, 
which have hitherto been waste land, as, for in- 
stance, the well-known Barabinsk steppe, which 
suffers from a lack of good water and is infested 
with insects that torment the inhabitants. Fur- 
ther, with a view to extending and enlarging the 
area for the reception of immigrants, forests are 
being cut down, drainage r^^stems planned and 
wells sunk for the purpose of obtaining good 
water. In order to ensure the future prosperity 
of the immigrants, the government is taking 
measures of every description to preserve the 
forests and natural riches in those parts intended 
for settlements. It furnishes material assistance 
and provides medical aid for immigrants who are 
usually of the poorer classes, and it has set aside 
a special fund for their benefit. In this way, 
regions which till quite lately were endless 
steppes, such as we find in western Siberia, or 
dark, impassable forests, as in eastern Siberia, 
even now, when the railway is far from being 
completed, already show a great animation. In 
many places along the line settlements th a 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 



153 



population of 8,000 or 9,000 have already sprung 
up, such as the settlement of Novonikolaevsk, 
near the bridge across the Obi, the station of 
Taiga at the beginning of the Tomsk branch, 
and the stations of Niman and Krasnaya-rietchka 
on the Usuri line. The following table shows 
the annual number of immigrants : 



In Men. 

1887 25,137 

1888 35,848 

1889 40,195 

1890 48,776 

1891 87.432 

1892 92,146 

1893 64,321 



In Men. 

1894 72,224 

1895 120,000 

1896 201,622 

1897 84,978 

1898 175,000 



Total 1,047,679 



The Siberian Railway has brought into the 
country not only a new population, but new in- 
stitutions and new culture. It was difficult for 
the new arrivals from Russia to adjust them- 
selves to the legal forms which already existed. 
This fact prompted the government to extend 
to Siberia the statutes of the Emperor Alexander 
II., relating to juries and the appointment of jus- 
tices of the peace. The great importance of this 
reform can only be realized by Siberians, who, 
thanks to it, will really obtain speedy and equi- 
table '^nd clement justice, but who were pre- 
viou tried in courts of an administrative char- 



154 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

acter. In a short time this reform was followed 
by the long-wished-for abolition of transporta- 
tion of criminals. 

Simultaneously with the increase of population 
in the districts through which the Siberian Rail- 
way passes, and in proportion as it was opened to 
traffic, all kinds of industries, which already ex- 
isted there, began to develop. It now seemed 
possible to export goods to the Russian and for- 
eign markets, which could not be sent there 
under the former conditions of transport. The 
greatest improvement hitherto has been appar- 
ent in agriculture, which, as already stated, con- 
stitutes almost the sole occupation of the civil- 
ized inhabitants. Thanks to the railway, Siberian 
corn has found its way to foreign markets. In- 
deed, since the opening of the West Siberian line, 
the railway authorities have sometimes been un- 
able to send ofT all the consignments of corn in 
proper time. These were often stored in large 
quantities along the line. In 1898 there were 
6,500 wagon loads of corn stored in this way; 
240 wagons were added daily, and the railway 
could only send ofif 120 wagons. The export to 
Russia of tallow, skins, wool and frozen meat has 
increased enormously of late years. This is one 
result of the development of cattle breeding in 
those districts traversed by the railway. Another 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 155 

is the increased activity in the butter-making 
industry, especially in the Province of Tobolsk. 
This industry has found a large market abroad, 
some 2,600,000 kilograms of Siberian butter hav- 
ing been exported in 1896. 

Of course these facts show only the small be- 
ginning of the great revolution which will be ef- 
fected by the railway in all branches of Siberian 
economical life, in agriculture and cattle breed- 
ing, manufactures and trade. In the mining in- 
dustry we might say that at present attention is 
only given to the working of gold. Such a state 
of afifairs is abnormal, for besides gold there are 
immense stores of other mineral wealth. The 
construction of a railway near rich seams of coal, 
iron, copper and other minerals will give an im- 
pulse to the working of them; for, on one hand, 
the railway itself will require some of the produc- 
tions of mining industry; on the other, it will 
make it possible to largely extend the market for 
them, and thus will bring about a better organi- 
zation of existing mining enterprises. 

The construction of the Great Siberian Rail- 
way has even now begun to produce a marked 
efifect on Siberian trade, which formerly was car- 
ried on entirely by monopolists. In each district 
or town there was a local capitalist, who laid in a 
stock of goods at the fairs of Nijni-Novgorod, or 



156 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

elsewhere, and then fixed his own prices accord- 
ing to the means of his customers, and competi- 
tion was non-existent. An enterprising man, 
who had neither capital nor credit, could not 
compete with these monopolists, because of the 
absence of good means of communication. This 
abnormal state of affairs is already improving. 
The railway which has connected Siberia with 
centres of production has rendered travelling 
cheaper and quicker, and made capital circulate 
more freely. People of small means are now en- 
abled to make long journeys for the purchase of 
stock, and they can enter into direct communica- 
tion with the producers and wholesale merchants 
in large centres. The trade of Siberia has be- 
come more democratic, and increasing competi- 
tion has effected a change in its character. 

Notwithstanding the small population, the 
uniformity of occupation, the poverty of the in- 
habitants and the absence of important industrial 
centres along the line, the traffic on the portions 
of the railway already opened has exceeded all 
expectations. Instead of the former three pairs 
of trains each day, as originally intended, the 
managers have been obliged to send off five pairs 
daily. These convey consignments of raw ma- 
terials, particularly grain, and are sent to the 
markets of Russia and western Europe. Purely 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 157 

local loads sent from one part of Siberia to an- 
other are small in quantity, for, owing to the uni- 
formity of occupation in western and central Si- 
beria, large exchange of goods is unnecessary, 
and the country people can supply their own 
modest wants. The influence of the railway on 
the export of Siberian goods to the adjacent 
countries of Asia is so far also very insignificant. 
But, of course, this state of affairs is only tem- 
porary, and may be explained by the fact that the 
railway is not yet finished, and that Siberia is 
only beginning to emerge from very primitive 
conditions. With the termination of the railway 
and the influx of population and capital to the 
country, not only will the trade of the interior be 
developed, but Siberia will also supply the coun- 
tries of eastern Asia with manufactured goods. 

One of the inevitable results, in conjunction 
with the influx of immigrants and capital, will 
be a greater division of labor, so necessary to the 
economical development of these dominions. In 
dependence on the natural and economical con- 
ditions, the population of each locality will de- 
vote their attention to one or many defined in- 
dustries, and the railway will assure the sale of 
their goods either abroad or in other parts of 
Siberia. 

As far as we can judge at present, Siberia will 



158 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

in future be divided into the following industrial 
regions : 

1. The agricultural region, extending along 
the railway line from the Ural to Lake Baikal. 
The products of this region, which are prin- 
cipally grain, will be sent abroad through Russia 
in Europe and also to eastern Siberia and Turk- 
estan. The project of a branch line to Turkestan 
has already been discussed by the administration, 
and its construction is merely a question of time. 
This branch line would indirectly be very advan- 
tageous to the whole Empire, for Siberian corn 
could be sent over it to Turkestan, and the in- 
habitants of that country would then devote 
their entire energies to the cultivation of the cot- 
ton plant. 

2. Two cattle breeding regions, in Transbai- 
kalia, and in the steppes of western Siberia, 
south of the agricultural region. 

3. The forest region, occupying the im- 
mense forests north of the agricultural region. 

4. The fishing centres, along the shores of 
the Pacific and near the mouths of large rivers. 

5. The mining and manufacturing region, 
which coincides with the basin of the Amur, and 
to which we may add the territory situated 
northeast of it and the Island of Sagalien. Owing 
to its mountainous character and the compara- 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 159 

tive absence of land suitable for agricultural pur- 
poses, the cultivation of cereals is not likely to be 
carried on here on a large scale, more especially 
as countries round about — central and western 
Siberia, Manchuria, Korea, Japan, China, India 
and America — are already well supplied with 
grain. We may presume that gold mining will 
for a long time remain one of the chief occupa- 
tions of the inhabitants of this region. On the 
other hand, the abundance of coal and iron in 
this region — both such powerful aids to econom- 
ical development — sufficiently guarantees the 
rise of the manufacturing industry at no very dis- 
tant date. In the Amur territory there will doubt- 
less be a rapid growth of factories to supply the 
large demand for cotton goods in the neighbor- 
ing countries of Manchuria and Korea. These 
factories will draw their supply of raw material 
from Russian Turkestan, China, Korea, India 
and North America. The importation of woollen 
stuffs to China and Japan, where no sheep breed- 
ing is carried on, is increasing yearly. It would 
be greatly to the advantage of the Amur manu- 
factories to participate in this industry, as they 
could procure large quantities of cheap wool 
from Transbaikalia and Mongolia. Finally, the 
climate and soil of the Amur territory are both 
favorable for the cultivation of the sugar beet, to- 



i6o THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

bacco, flax and hemp, the manufactured product 
of which may also find a market in the countries 
round about. 

In the economical awakening of Siberia, and 
particularly of its richest part — the basin of the 
Amur — an important role will doubtless be 
played by the United States, which is the nearest 
civilized neighbor, with whom Russia can have 
no serious misunderstandings. The trade of 
North America with Vladivostok has hitherto 
not been very extensive, and has been confined 
to the importation of small quantities of flour, 
other foodstuffs, machinery, agricultural imple- 
ments, leather, etc., from San Francisco. Owing 
to the absence of economical life in Siberia, noth- 
ing else, of course, was to be expected. But the 
small volume of trade up to the present time is 
no indication of what future years will bring 
about. In fact, an improvement has already 
been made, and American factories have supplied 
various materials, locomotives and rails particu- 
larly, for the Manchurian railway. 

The Manchurian railway at present consists 
only of a single line, but the management has 
had the track made broad enough to admit of a 
double line, and its construction will follow in 
due course. For the construction of this second 
line 192,000,000 kilograms of rails will be re- 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. i6i 

quired. Then, besides the amount of rails neces- 
sary for the smaller yearly repairs on the Man- 
churian and Siberian lines, and the proposed 
branches of the latter, 960,000,000 kilograms of 
rails will be required in ten years' time for a thor- 
ough repair of these railways. At the same time 
a gradual renewal of the rolling stock will be 
necessary. At the rail, engine and car-building 
works of the United States work is as well done 
as in England, and at the same time much more 
quickly and cheaply; it is therefore certain that 
the United States will have many opportunities 
of supplying the Siberian and Manchurian rail- 
ways with rails and rolling stock. In general, 
machinery and mechanical industries of America 
will find a large market in all parts of Siberia for 
their productions, such as machinery necessary 
for new manufactories and workshops, and for 
various mining industries, agricultural imple- 
ments and appliances for the equipment of fish- 
ing and other vessels. It must be mentioned here 
that the Russian Government, in order to pro- 
mote the economical development of Siberia, has 
sanctioned the importation, duty-free until 1909, 
of all plants necessary for the Siberian and Ural 
mining industry, through all her frontiers. Be- 
sides this, no customs dues are to be levied until 
1903 upon fishing nets and machinery necessary 



i62 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

for the different manufacturing and mechanical 
establishments of Siberia, which may be imported 
through the mouths of Siberian rivers. 

Among other important articles exported 
from the United States the following may find a 
market in the districts traversed by the Siberian 
railways : In Manchuria, cotton goods and sugar 
and steel and iron ware, which, as contracted be- 
tween the Chinese Government and the com- 
pany constructing the Manchurian railway will 
be subject only to the ordinary Chinese customs 
duties when brought to Manchuria via Dalny; 
in Siberia, chemical goods, soap, fruit, hops, 
watches, musical instruments, cycles, type- 
writers, tinware, ready-made clothing, and last, 
but not least, raw cotton for the factories, which, 
as stated above, will certainly spring up in the 
Amur territory. Siberian productions which 
may find a market in the United States are hides, 
wool and especially coal. 

It is not only the coal fields of Siberia, but 
likewise all the rich stores of natural wealth that 
are awaiting the advent of energetic and enter- 
prising men. To such the Russian epithet " gold 
bottom," as applied to Siberia, will prove no mis- 
nomer. These vast treasures are lying idle be- 
cause of the absence of capital and enterprise. 
In this respect Siberia offers a wide and im- 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 163 

portant field of action to the capitalists of North 
America, who are famous for the breadth of their 
views and their energy. Every serious enter- 
prise in Siberia in which American capital will be 
invested will be welcomed by the Russian Gov- 
ernment. 

The Siberian Railway will be an important 
factor in the trade of the world, as a means of 
transit between Europe and the Far East. It is 
true that, in this respect, it has rivals in the sea 
route through the Suez Canal, and the combined 
sea and land route through North America. Yet 
the Siberian Railway has on its side an advantage, 
which is most important in our day, and which 
is indicated in the old saw, '' time is money." 
With the completion of this work. Port Arthur 
will be connected with St. Petersburg by a railway 
of 5,850 English miles, with Berlin of 6,350 
English miles, with Paris of 7,100 English miles 
and with London of 7,300 English miles. With 
the quick trains on the European system, these 
distances could be covered in from eight to ten 
days (in five and a half days by the Nord Ex- 
press). But even if we take the present speed 
of the West Siberian trains (twenty-two versts 
an hour), it follows that only eighteen days are 
necessary for the journey from Western Europe 
to Port Arthur. This speed can easily be in- 



i64 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

creased to twenty-five versts an hour. Then the 
journey from London to the Far East will take 
the following time by the rival routes: 

To To To 

Yokohama. Shanghai. Hongkong. 

Via Siberian Railway. . . i8 days. 17 days. 20 days. 

Via Suez Canal 34 days. 28 days. 25 days. 

Via America 25 days. 31 days. 33 days. 

This great advantage possessed by the Siberian 
Railway will cause an important revolution in the 
communications between Europe and the Far 
East. Firstly, the mails, for which speed is so 
essential, will be sent by this railway, and sec- 
ondly, the greater part of the passenger traffic 
will come to it. It is true, that some apprehension 
is felt about the fatiguing effect of a long railway 
journey on the passengers, but in the special 
Siberian trains everything is done that can con- 
duce to comfort and amusement. There are a 
library, bath rooms, and even cars fitted up for 
gymnastics. Of course, the railway journey is 
not so pleasant as the voyage on one of the excel- 
lent ocean steamers, when the weather is fine. 
But, first of all, the Chinese Sea and the Indian 
Ocean are never calm except in March and April, 
and, secondly, there is for two whole weeks no 
escape from the intense tropical heat when coming 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 165 

through the Suez Canal. The Canadian route, 
on the other hand, involves a double transfer from 
ship to train. We must also bear in mind the 
fact that the Siberian route will be the cheapest 
as well as the most rapid one. At present the 
journey from Paris or London to the ports of 
China and Japan, by the transoceanic route, costs, 
first-class, from 1,800 to 1,840 francs, including 
food. But owing to the very low fares charged 
for long distances in the Russian Empire, the 
overland journey will cost in all only from 800 
to 950 francs — that is, only about half the cost 
of the route by Suez or America. 

With the goods traffic, things will be different ; 
for most commodities, the cost of transport is 
more important than speed; therefore, as far as 
all heavy merchandise is concerned, the railway 
cannot compete with the sea route. But, in spite 
of this, we may anticipate that the greater part 
of valuable goods from Russia, or Europe, to the 
Far East will be sent by railway, as, with a tariff 
of half a cent per English mile, per ton, the trans- 
port by land would only be slightly dearer than 
by sea, not to speak of the possibility of reducing 
the land journey to twenty-five or thirty days, 
whereas, by sea, at present, goods from Mos- 
cow to Vladivostok are forty-five days in tran- 
sit. Goods which suffer from sea-damp and 



i66 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

tropical heat will also be sent by the Siberian 
Railway. 

The Manchurian Railway will have at its own 
disposal steamers running between the termini o£ 
the Siberian Railway and the chief ports in the 
Far East, which will also tend to attract passen- 
gers and goods to the Siberian line. 

The Siberian Railway will greatly consolidate 
Russia's position on the shores of the Pacific, 
facilitating the transport of important military 
forces thither at any time. 

The outlay of the immense sum of four hun- 
dred million roubles for the construction of the 
railway obliges Russia to do her utmost to recom- 
pense herself for this outlay by developing the 
economical forces of Siberia and attracting as 
much traffic as possible to the railway. Therefore, 
from the moment when the railway is completed, 
Russia's principal task in the Far East will be, not 
the encouragement of political and territorial 
aggrandizement, but a ceaseless effort to promote 
peace and tranquilHty, those main factors which 
will enable the Siberian Railway to play its eco- 
nomical part as the vital artery of Siberia and all 
the Old World. 

MiKHAILOFF. 



CHINA AND THE POWERS. 



CHINA AND THE POWERS. 

None of the Powers has greater interests at 
stake in China, whether existent or prospective, 
than Great Britain and the United States. As 
will be seen by my Report on the China Mission, 
shortly to be published by Messrs. Harper and 
Brothers, the latest figures I was able to obtain 
during my visit to China last year ( 1898) showed 
that these two Powers had over seventy-two pgr 
cent, of the whole of the foreign trade with China 
in their hands; all the other Powers combined 
having only twenty-eight per cent, between them, 
of which Japan possesses the larger share. 

It is perfectly true that, upon examining these 
figures, there seems to be a great disproportion 
between sixty-four per cent, of trade possessed 
by Great Britain, and the eight per cent, possessed 
by the United States. It must be remembered, 
however, that it was Great Britain who opened 
up, made possible, and developed the foreign trade 
of the Chinese Empire. For many years. Great 



I70 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

Britain held an almost undisputed commercial 
position in that country. Subsequently, other 
European countries began to compete with her; 
but the American nation, which is probably about 
the latest of these competitors, has already out- 
distanced all rivals, and obtained eight per cent, 
of the whole trade, as against the twenty-eight per 
cent, of all other nations combined (including 
Japan). Viewed in this light, it will be seen that 
the disproportion between the trade of Great 
Britain and the United States is less real than 
apparent. There are one or two other factors 
which have to be taken into consideration in 
studying these statistics, which, like all figures, 
are more or less misleading. 

The first point is that not only is a very large 
proportion of American trade carried in British 
bottoms, but, in addition, a considerable amount 
is consigned to the old-established British firms 
in China, and therefore is rightly treated as 
British commerce by the Chinese customs. This 
trade in American goods is very large, I am told ; 
and, while it is rightly classified as British, being 
British owned, and carried in British ships to 
Chinese ports, yet its place of origin is none the 
less American. 

The second point is, that this eight per cent, 
of actual American trade as against sixty-four 



CHINA AND THE POWERS. 171 

per cent, of nominal British trade, has been ob- 
tained in a comparatively few years, and the 
proportionate increase of trade in the last two or 
three years would therefore be found to be in 
favor of America. 

The third, and still more important, point is 
that, while the British volume of trade is still 
growing, there is no doubt that in several direc- 
tions, notably in drills, jeans and sheetings, the 
trade of the United States has steadily gone ahead 
in China, while in British trade there has been 
a decline. The cotton piece goods trade as a whole 
declined during 1897, but, in the items quoted 
above, there was actually an increase of nearly 
500,000 pieces, all of American manufacture. 

It is apparent, therefore, that the interest of 
the United States in the foreign trade of China 
is not only an increasing one, but is also a pro- 
portionately greater interest than that of all 
European competitors, with the exception of 
Great Britain, and this despite the fact that most 
of them had the start of the United States in 
competing with Great Britain for the China 
market. 

I was pleased to find that on the whole the 
American press, as the representative of public 
opinion in the United States, warmly endorsed 
the views which I expressed relative to the open 



172 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

door, in my speeches on my way back to Great 
Britain, and all appeared to be very much inter- 
ested in the China problem. Despite this interest, 
however, I was unable to obtain any definite ex- 
pression of opinion in favor of an active policy in 
Chinese affairs. 

The commercial community of any country 
knows its own business better than any outsider 
can teach it, and all I propose to do is to lay plain 
facts before my American readers, without pre- 
suming to dictate to them as to what their line of 
policy should be. 

The position and importance of American 
trade with China I have already shown to be con- 
siderable. The prospects of its development, and 
the many openings for increasing trade, will be 
found on reading my Report. The only question 
which remains, and which I propose to shortly 
deal with here, is the actual position and prospects 
of China herself, and how American interests are 
thereby affected. 

Some of the American journals which dis- 
agreed with me, seemed to doubt the wisdom of 
the policy I suggested in my speeches in America, 
because, they say, " if inaugurated it would force 
the United States into a situation which might 
lead to war," and therefore the interests involved 




^K ; 



3 H. > 
^' o 




Z n 
?: O 




CHINA AND THE POWERS. 173 

are not commensurate with the risks and respon- 
sibiHties Hkely to be incurred. 

I can quite understand this argument, and how 
strongly it must appeal to the people of the United 
States, who have always endeavored to observe 
a policy of non-intervention in foreign affairs, 
unless important interests of the American people 
were at stake, or their sense of justice was ap- 
pealed to. This is a perfectly intelligible policy 
on the part of a commercial nation, to which peace 
is of the highest importance, because of the dis- 
turbing effect of war on trade and commerce. 
But there are occasions on which it is necessary 
to protect commercial interests by going to war, 
and there are occasions on which an energetic 
policy is necessary in order to prevent war, and 
to avoid irreparable damage to trade and com- 
merce. The situation we are now facing comes 
under the last-named head. In my humble opinion, 
in the present state of affairs with regard to China, 
it would be better in the commercial interests of 
both the United States and Great Britain, that 
they should support China, and so prevent the 
total collapse of this immense Empire, together 
with the consequent disorganization of trade, and 
the expenditure of blood and money which will 
be required to restore law and order, and to re- 



174 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

establish that confidence without which trade 
cannot flourish. 

If it were merely a question of the present value 
of American-Chinese trade being involved, I can 
quite see that it would pay the United States to 
remain an unmoved spectator of events in the 
Far East; but this is not the case. China is an 
almost untapped market. It is a vast country 
with an enormous population, and rich natural 
resources, all of which can be developed. Can 
either the United States or Great Britain afford 
to stand aside, and see their present trade dis- 
turbed, if not lost; and, also, their share in the 
prospective development of China as a whole 
interfered with? There is no doubt what the 
answer of the commercial classes in Great Britain 
will be, and I do not think that there will be much 
difference between their views and those of the 
business men of the United States, when the latter 
have carefully examined the data with which my 
Report will supply them. 

There are only two poHcies open. The one, I 
contend, will inevitably lead to anarchy and re- 
bellion in China, and possibly to war between 
the foreign nations whose interests clash in that 
country. In certain phases of situations, no 
such thing as a policy of non-intervention is pos- 
sible. This is one of them. To calmly await 



CHINA AND THE POWERS. 175 

events really means to precipitate the dangers 
we all wish to avoid. Recent action on the part 
of the various European Powers has tended to 
discredit the Chinese Government in the eyes of 
the people. So called '' spheres of influence" are 
being more or less openly mapped out. In those 
spheres, certain countries are endeavoring to set 
up a claim to exclusive rights and privileges. 
China is powerless to resist the demands which 
are made upon her, and, when she yields to one 
Power by ''force majeure,'' she is immediately 
bullied by other Powers to give them compensa- 
tion for things she had neither the moral right 
to grant nor the physical power to refuse. 

This selfish and cowardly policy has been pur- 
sued by all the European Powers in a minor or 
major degree. If it is continued much longer, it 
must inevitably lead to the break-up of the Chi- 
nese Empire. I will go further. It has been 
pursued too long already; events are moving so 
rapidly that w^e can no longer adhere to a policy 
of drift. The effete and corrupt Chinese Gov- 
ernment has been so severely shaken that, the 
moment the people realize its impotence, it must, 
fall. There are only two policies in my opinion 
to be adopted. The one is to acquiesce in this 
state of affairs, and so be compelled to join the 
dishonest '' spheres of influence" policy, which 



176 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

means that every one will take as much territory 
as he can. The second and alternative line of 
policy is that which I have described as the 
" Open Door, or Equal Opportunity for the 
Trade of All Nations." I will deal with both. 

SPHERES OF INFLUENCE. 

It amazes me to hear people talk so calmly 
about the break-up of an empire of over 430,- 
000,000 of people. It will be easy to destroy the 
present governmental system in China, but how 
is it to be reconstructed? What will become of 
the guarantees and undertakings of China, and 
what security have we that the expectant heirs 
of the Sick Man of the Far East will assume the 
responsibility for his obligations? The phrase 
'' spheres of influence" is easy to use in theory, 
but how is the policy it indicates to be carried 
out in practice? 

Nominal spheres of influence, such as Ger- 
many now possesses in Shan-tung, or Russia in 
Manchuria, may exist as long as there is a Chi- 
nese Government with some authority over the 
people to maintain law and order; but when that 
government is overturned and the authority of 
the hated foreigner is substituted for it, the ques- 
tion becomes less easy to settle than it looks on 



CHINA AND THE POWERS. 177 

the face of it. Are the Powers going to land 
armies to conquer or repress 400,000,000 of 
people, who even now show an undisguised 
hatred and contempt for the foreigner and all his 
methods? Are we going to destroy an empire 
which h^s lasted for 4,000 years, and replace it 
with something else in a satisfactory manner, 
within a period of ten, fifteen, twenty or even a 
hundred years? What man of common sense can 
doubt that such a policy means endless trouble, 
anarchy and rebellion; and an interference with 
trade and commerce which may be felt for years 
to come? To foreign bondholders it means a 
loss of between fifty and sixty millions sterling, 
because the debtor and his guarantee will both 
have disappeared. 

How are the rival interests of conflicting na- 
tions to be amicably adjusted, if such a state of 
aflfairs is brought about? Capital has been in- 
vested and railways are being built by one 
Power in the '' sphere of influence" regarded by 
another Power as peculiarly its own. For in- 
stance, in the Yang-tse Valley, which, if '' spheres 
of influence" are marked out. Great Britain will 
take measures to secure as her own, several na- 
tions have lately obtained territorial concessions, 
which have resulted in the disturbance of British 
firms who owned land within such concessions. 



178 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

It cannot be doubted that, if the disintegration 
of China begins, these and other questions will 
lead to international complications. Where is 
the United States' sphere of influence to be? I 
think the answer is very short. The United 
States' sphere of influence, like that of Great 
Britain, should be wherever American trade pre- 
ponderates over that of other Powers. If one 
Power is allowed to close the door in the south, 
and others in the north, no sphere of influence 
can compensate America and Great Britain for 
the loss they must sustain. 

The policy of inaction will, therefore, by al- 
lowing the Chinese Government to fall to pieces, 
bring about a condition of affairs which must 
lead to an expenditure of blood and money to 
protect the lives and property of foreigners resi- 
dent in China. It most probably will lead to in- 
ternational complications, and to a European 
war, and most certainly it will mean great dis- 
turbance to, if not eventual loss of, trade. 



"the open door. 



The alternative policy to that which I have 
just described is that of the " Open Door, or 
Equal Opportunity for All." This policy was 
advocated in my recent speeches in America on 



CHINA AND THE POWERS. 179 

the China question. I suppose that, even in a 
protectionist country, such as the United States, 
no one will deny the advantages of such a policy 
as applied to American exports to China; and 
that, whether the American manufacturer pre- 
fers to have preferential rights at home or not, it 
must be to his advantage that he has an equal 
opportunity with the foreigner abroad, and that 
no foreigner secures preferential rights in China 
which would leave American trade in the cold. 

This being so, only the question of the cost re- 
mains to be calculated, and how such a policy is 
to be carried out if adopted. It is upon this 
point that I think some of the American journals 
misunderstood my arguments, which probably 
were not sufficiently clearly stated. 

I deny that this policy can lead to war, or that 
it will cost the United States a single cent, or a 
solitary soldier to carry it out. 

The first thing is to see how this policy is to be 
undertaken, and then we can estimate the cost of 
it. It means a policy to be inaugurated now, 
whereas the alternative policy is a policy of pro- 
crastination. This is a most important point 
when it is remembered that there are only two 
Powers ready to go to war in China to-day, or 
who can possibly do so with any chance of suc- 
cess. As time goes on this will be altered. At 



i8o THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

the present moment Great Britain, with her 
enormous fleet in Far Eastern waters, and the 
100,000 native troops she can bring up from 
India within a shorter time than any other" 
Power can land an army, combined with her pos- 
session of the chief coaHng stations, is pre-em- 
inently in a position to deal with the China ques- 
tion by war, if she so desired. Next to her comes 
Japan, with a fine fleet in close proximity to the 
scene of operations, and a capacity to land 200,- 
000 troops in China at any moment. Apart from 
these two, the United States, by her position on 
the other side of the Pacific, and the object les- 
son she has just given the world of her ability 
to mobilize men and ships rapidly and effec- 
tively, has also to be counted with: while, as any 
trouble in China would probably mean Euro- 
pean complications, Germany would have to be 
regarded as an important factor in the position. 
Above all, these four Powers represent the for- 
eign trade interests of China, the proportion 
divided up amongst other nations being so incon- 
siderable that it has no such strong claims. 

These four Powers, therefore, have a moral 
right to protect their own interests, and the 
ability to do so. If they agreed to combine, not 
for purely selfish motives, but to guarantee the 



CHINA AND THE POWERS. i8i 

independence of China, and the maintenance of 
a fair field and no favor for all comers, who can 
suppose that any other Power could reasonably 
(or even unreasonably) object. The whole raison 
d'etre of such an understanding would lie in the 
fact that it would be too powerful to attack, and 
that it could maintain the peace while preserving 
the open door to all. There would be no men- 
ace to other Powers in such a combination, be- 
cause the bond of agreement between the. con- 
tracting parties would be the preservation of the 
open door with equal opportunity for all. To 
China herself the Powers would prove friends in 
need. By guaranteeing her integrity, they 
would give a new lease of life to the Chinese 
Empire. They would be entitled to ask, and 
powerful enough to secure, that reforms for the 
benefit of China and the improvement of foreign 
trade should be carried out. 

The reorganization of China's finances and her 
army would enable her to stand alone in the near 
future. It is not necessary to go to Congress or 
to the Imperial Parliament to secure the men 
necessary to assist China to effect these reforms. 
As long as the four governments induced China 
to undertake the reforms in return for their pro- 
tection, men would easily be secured from all of 



i82 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

these countries, and also from other nations, who 
would assist the Chinese in building up their 
Empire on more stable foundations. 

The moral and political support of China by 
the four Powers I have named is all that is needed. 
They need not expend a single shilling, or move 
a single man, officially, in order to carry it out. 
All that is required is that China shall be assisted, 
and, in return for such assistance, shall employ 
foreigners of all countries who will reorganize 
her army and her finances, on as sound lines as 
the Imperial Maritime Customs of China is estab- 
lished. 

Observation of recent events teaches us that, if 
we continue to leave China to herself without 
recuperative power from within, or firm and 
determined assistance from without, her ultimate 
disintegration is only a question of time. The 
reforms which are urgently required in China, 
both for the benefit of that Empire and its people, 
and for the development of the trade of friend- 
ly nations, may be shortly summarized as fol- 
lows: 

1. The appointment of a foreign Financial 
Adviser to direct the administration and collec- 
tion of internal revenue. 

2. The reform of currency, so as to afford 
a more stable exchange. 



CHINA AND THE POWERS. 183 

3. The establishment and centralization of 
mints. 

4. The abolition of the present octroi and likin 
charges on goods which have already paid duty 
at the ports. In return for this, China should be 
allowed to increase her present tariff. Trade 
would not be damaged so much by slightly in- 
creased taxation, as it is injured and hindered 
by the delays and uncertainties of the present fiscal 
system. 

5. The re-arrangement of the salt monopoly, 
and general administrative reform. 

6. The establishment and maintenance of a 
proper military and police, capable of affording 
that protection to which the foreign merchant is 
entitled for himself or his goods. 

7. The opening up of the country and its re- 
sources, by giving greater facilities to native or 
foreign capital in the development of the minerals 
of the country, and improvements in the lines of 
communication, including postal and telegraphic 
reforms. 

8. The right of residence in the interior to be 
conceded to foreigners. 

9. The promotion of all reforms and the intro- 
duction of all changes which are likely to promote 
the cause of civilization and the well-being of the 
Chinese people. 



i84 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

Such a coalition as that of the four great trad- 
ing Powers I have mentioned could obtain these 
reforms with advantage to themselves, and benefit 
to China, and indeed the trading world. 

In a very few years, with this assistance loyally 
rendered, China would have an army capable of 
protecting herself, as long as she retained the 
foreign officers. The idea that the Chinese are 
not good soldiers is a great mistake. I was per- 
mitted to inspect most of the armies, and all of 
the forts and arsenals of China, as will be seen 
by the detailed accounts in my Report, and I am 
convinced that, properly armed, disciplined, and 
led, there could be no better material than the 
Chinese soldier. I leave it to the commercial 
classes of the United States to say whether it is 
not worth their while to incur such slight risks 
for such great profit, and for so good an object. 

On sound business lines this policy appeals to 
the American nation ; but, in addition to that, are 
we going to let this opportunity slip of drawing 
the two Anglo-Saxon nations together for the 
cause of civilized progress, and the benefit of the 
world at large ? Great nations have great respon- 
sibilities, to which they must be true, and when 
those responsibilities and self-interest go hand in 
hand, it would be unwise to miss the opportunity. 

Events are moving very rapidly in the Far 



CHINA AND THE POWERS. 185 

East. A decision must be arrived at, and action 
of some sort taken very soon. It is the duty of 
Great Britain to lead, and I believe that the 
United States will not refuse to follow, but that 
both nations will combine to hoist aloft the banner 
of civilization and industrial progress, for the 
benefit of their own people, as well as for the 
benefit of China, and of the world. 

Charles Beresford. 



MUTUAL HELPFULNESS BETWEEN 

CHINA AND THE UNITED 

STATES. 



MUTUAL HELPFULNESS BETWEEN 

CHINA AND THE UNITED 

STATES. 

Trade, which lies at the foundation of inter- 
national intercourse, has an eminently selfish 
origin. It is a constant manoeuvre on the part of 
men to sell dear and buy cheap. Since each party 
in a commercial transaction seeks only his own 
advantage, it was for a long time thought that 
one of them could gain only at the expense of the 
other. Thus the " mercantile system," which for 
centuries held Europe spellbound, made gold- 
getting the end and aim of all commercial activi- 
ties. The promotion of friendly relations with 
the object of securing an exchange of benefits was 
not considered of even secondary importance. 
Then came the navigation laws which had for 
their avowed purpose the crippling of all rival 
shipping by laying a heavy tax upon the carrying 
trade of foreigners. Though such measures are 
no longer considered advisable in the commercial 



190 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

world, their baleful efifects are still felt in the 
political thought of the present time. 

Nations now enter into friendly relations with 
each other because it is believed that both sides 
are benefited by such relations. Their transactions 
cannot be one-sided affairs, for the simple reason 
that it takes two to make a bargain. If one party 
is dissatisfied with the arrangement, the other 
party will not long have an opportunity to enjoy 
its benefits. 

Confucius was once asked for a single word 
which might serve as a guiding principle through 
life. " Is not reciprocity such a word?" answered 
the great sage. '' What you do not want done 
to yourself, do not do to others." This is the 
" Golden Rule" which should govern the relations 
of man to man. It is the foundation of society. 
It lies at the bottom of every system of morality, 
and every system of law. If it holds good with 
respect to individuals, it ought to hold good with 
respect to nations, which are but large aggrega- 
tions of individuals. Therefore, if permanent 
relations are to be established between two na- 
tions, reciprocity must be the key-note of every 
arrangement entered into between them. 

Having recognized this great principle of inter- 
national intercourse, how shall we apply it to the 
case of China and the United States in such 



CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES. 191 

a manner as to result in mutual helpfulness? 
Assuredly, the first thing to do is to take a general 
survey of the situation and see what are the 
present needs of each country. Then we shall 
perceive clearly how each may help the other to 
a higher plane of material development and pros- 
perity. 

The United States now has its industrial ma- 
chinery perfectly adjusted to the production of 
wealth on a scale of unprecedented magnitude. 
Of land, the first of the three agents of production 
enumerated by economists, the United States is 
fortunately blessed with an almost unlimited 
amount. Its territory stretches from ocean to 
ocean, and from the snows of the Arctic Circle 
to the broiling sun of the tropics. Within these 
limits are found all the products of soil, forest 
and mine that are useful to man. With respect 
to labor, the second agent of production, the 
United States at first naturally suffered the dis- 
advantage common to all new countries. But 
here the genius of the people came into play to 
relieve the situation. That necessity, which is 
" the mother of invention," substituted the sewing 
machine for women's fingers, the McCormick 
reaper for farm hands, the cotton gin for slaves. 
The efficiency of labor was thereby multiplied, in 
many cases, a hundred fold. The ingenious 



192 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

manner in which capital, the third agent of pro- 
duction, is put to a profitable use, is equally char- 
acteristic of America. It is well known that there 
is an enormous amount of capital in this country 
seeking investment. Every one who has a little 
to invest wishes to obtain as large a return as 
possible. Since competition reduces profits, the 
formation of industrial combinations, commonly 
called trusts, is for the capitalist the logical solu- 
tion of the difficulty. These enable the vast 
amount of capital in this country to secure the 
best results with the greatest economy. Whether 
they secure " the greatest good to the greatest 
number" is another matter. 

The development of the resources of the United 
States by the use of machinery and by the com- 
bination of capital has now reached a point which 
may be termed critical. The productive power 
of the country increases so much faster than its 
capacity for consumption that the demand of 
a population of 75,000,000 is no sooner felt than 
supplied. There is constant danger of over- 
production, with all its attendant consequences. 
Under these circumstances, it is imperative for 
the farmers and manufacturers of the United 
States to seek an outlet for their products and 
goods in foreign markets. But whither shall they 
turn? 



CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES. 193 

At first sight, Europe presents perhaps the 
most inviting field. Both blood and association 
point in this direction. But here the cottons of 
Lowell would have to compete with the fabrics 
of Manchester. The silk manufactures of Pater- 
son would stand small chance of supplanting the 
finished products of Lyons. The sugar of Louisi- 
ana would encounter a formidable rival in the 
beet-sugar of Germany. England could probably 
better afford to sell her coal and iron cheaper than 
Pennsylvania, and Russia could supply European 
markets with wheat and petroleum as well as 
could Ohio and Indiana. Competition would be 
keen and destructive. 

Central and South America have as yet too 
sparse ^ population for the immense territory they 
cover to meet the conditions of a market for 
American goods. Some decades must elapse 
before American farmers and manufacturers can 
look to that quarter for relief. 

But on the other side of the Pacific lies the 
vast Empire of China, which in extent of terri- 
tory and density of population exceeds the whole 
of Europe. To be more particular, the Province 
of Szechuen can muster more able-bodied men 
than the German Empire. The Province of 
Shan-tung can boast of as many native-born sons 
as France. Scatter all the inhabitants of Costa 



194 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

Rica or Nicaragua in Canton, and they would be 
completely lost in that city's surging throngs. 
Transport all the people of Chile into China, and 
they would fill only a city of the first class. Fur- 
ther comparisons are needless. Suffice it to say 
that China has her teeming millions to feed and 
to clothe. Many of the supplies come from out- 
side. The share furnished by the United States 
was considerably larger last year than ever before, 
and might be greatly increased. According to 
the statistics published by the United States Gov- 
ernment, China in 1899 ^^^k American goods 
to the value of $14,437,422, of which amount 
$9,844,565 was paid for cotton goods. All 
the European countries combined bought only 
$1,484,363 worth of American cotton manufac- 
tures during that same period. The amount of 
similar purchases made by the Central American 
States was $737,259, by all the South American 
countries $2,713,967. It thus appears that China 
is the largest buyer of American cotton goods. 
British America comes next in the list with pur- 
chases amounting to $2,759,164. Cotton cloth 
has a wide range of uses in all parts of the Chinese 
Empire, and it is almost impossible for the supply 
to equal the demand. ♦ 

Up to the year 1898, cotton goods and kerosene 
were the only articles imported from the United 



CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES. 195 

States in large enough quantities to have a value 
of over $1,000,000. But I notice in the statistics 
published by the United States Government for 
the year 1899, that manufactures of iron and steel 
have also passed that mark. This is due to the 
fact that China has now begun in real earnest the 
work of building railroads. The demand for 
construction materials is great. The value of 
locomotives imported last year from the United 
States was $732,212. 

Besides the articles mentioned, there are many 
others of American origin, which do not figure in 
the customs returns as such. These find their 
way into China through adjacent countries, espe- 
cially Hongkong. At least three-fourths of the 
imports of Hongkong, notably wheat, flour and 
canned goods, are destined for consumption in the 
Chinese mainland. 

Such is the present condition of trade between 
the United States and China. That trade can be 
greatly extended. Let the products of American 
farms, mills and workshops once catch the Chinese 
fancy, and America need look no farther for a 
market. The present popularity of American 
kerosene illustrates the readiness of the Chinese 
to accept any article that fills a long-felt want. 
They have recognized in kerosene a cheap and 
good illuminant, much superior to their own 



196 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

nut-oil, and it has consequently found its way into 
distant and outlying parts of the Empire where 
the very name of America is unknown. Stores 
in the interior now send their agents to the treaty 
ports for it. In the same way, foreign-made 
candles, because cheaper than those of home 
make, are selling easily in China. I would suggest 
that American farmers and manufacturers might 
find it to their advantage to study the wants and 
habits of the Chinese and the conditions of trade 
in China. 

Thus we see that China can give the United 
States a much-needed market. What, on the 
other hand, can the United States do for China? 
Let us consider China's stock of the three requis- 
ites for the production of wealth — land, labor 
and capital. 

The Chinese Empire embraces a continuous 
territory which stretches over sixty degrees of 
longitude and thirty-four degrees of latitude. 
Nature has endowed this immense region with 
every variety of soil and climate, but has, how- 
ever, scattered her bounties over it with an un- 
even hand. That portion which comprises the 
eighteen provinces of China proper, extending 
from the Great Wall to the China Sea, and from 
the Tibetan plateau to the Pacific Ocean, is more 
highly favored than the rest. Whenever China 




Reproduced from Harper's Weekly 

CHINESE MINISTER TO THE UNITED STATES, WU TING-FANG 



CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES. 197 

is mentioned it is generally this particular por- 
tion of the Empire that is meant. On this land 
hundreds of generations of men have lived and 
died without exhausting its richness and fertility. 
There remains for generations to come untold 
wealth of nature lying hidden within the bowels 
of the earth. The mines of Yunnan, though they 
have for centuries supplied the government 
mints with copper for the coining of those pieces 
of money commonly known as cash, only await 
the introduction of modern methods of extrac- 
tion to yield an annual output as large as that of 
the famous Calumet and Hecla mines. The sands 
of the Yang-tse, washed down from the high- 
lands of Tibet, contain so much gold that that 
part of its course as it enters the Province of 
Szechuen is called the River of Golden Sand. 
Much more important than these, however, are 
the deposits of coal which underlie the surface 
formation of every province. All varieties of 
coal are found, from the softest lignite to the 
hardest anthracite, and in such quantities that, 
according to the careful estimate of Baron Rich- 
tofen, the famous German traveller and geolo- 
gist, the Province of Shansi alone can supply the 
whole world at the present rate of consumption 
for 3,000 years. In most cases beds of iron ore 
lie in close proximity to those of coal, and can 



198 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

hence be easily worked and smelted. In short, 
the natural resources of China, both in variety 
and quantity, are so great that she stands second 
to no other nation in potential wealth. To re- 
duce this potentiality to actuality is for her the 
most important question of the hour. For this 
purpose she has an almost unlimited supply of 
labor at her command. 

Every village can count its thousands of 
laborers, every city its tens of thousands. Ex- 
perience proves that the Chinese as all-round 
laborers can easily distance all competitors. 
They are industrious, intelligent and orderly. 
They can work under conditions that would kill 
a man of a less hardy race; in heat that would 
suit a salamander or in cold that would please a 
polar • bear, sustaining their energies through 
long hours of unremitting toil with only a few 
bowls of rice. 

But have the Chinese sufificient capital to carry 
on their industrial operations? They are a nation 
of shopkeepers. What capital they have is usu- 
ally invested in small business ventures. It is 
their instinct to avoid large enterprises. Thus, 
the capital in the country, though undoubtedly 
large, may be likened to a pile of sand on the 
beach. It has great extent, but is so utterly 
lacking in cohesion that out of it no lofty struc- 



CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES. 199 

ture can be built. Before China can be really on 
the high road to prosperity, it must find means 
of fully utilizing every economic advantage that 
it has. Modern methods are its greatest need. 
Here is America's opportunity. 

The Yankee is never seen to better advantage 
than when experimenting with a new idea on a 
colossal scale. To direct vast or novel enterprises 
is a perfectly new experience to the Chinaman. 
Give him a junk and he will with ease ride out 
the fiercest typhoon that ever lashed the seas. 
But give him an ocean leviathan of the present 
day, with its complicated engines, dynamos, 
compasses and other modern appliances for nav- 
igating a ship, and he will be truly '' all at sea" in 
knowing how to handle it, even in a dead calm. 

Of all public works, China has most pressing 
need of railroads. Only ten years ago it would 
have been difficult to convince one man in ten 
of the immediate necessity for the introduction 
of railroads into all the provinces of the Empire. 
To-day at least nine out of every ten believe that 
railroads ought to be built as fast as possible. 
This complete change of public opinion within 
so short a time shows perhaps better than any- 
thing else how fast China is getting into the 
swing of the world's forward movement. There 
are at present only about 400 miles of railroad 



200 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

open to trafific throughout the whole country, 
and all the Hnes building and projected foot up 
to 5,000 or 6,000 miles more. China proper 
covers about as many square miles as the States 
east of the Mississippi. Those States, with a 
population of 50,000,000, require 100,000 miles 
of railroad to do their business. China, with a 
population eight times as large, would naturally 
be supposed to need at least about an equal mile- 
age of roads for her purposes. It would not be 
strange if the activity in railroad construction in 
the United States soon after the Civil War 
should find a parallel in China in coming years. 

The building of railroads in China does not 
partake of the speculative character which at- 
tended the building of some of the American 
roads. There are no wild regions to be opened 
up for settlement, no new towns to be built along 
the route. Here is a case of the railroad follow- 
ing the population, and not that of the popula- 
tion following the railroad. A road built through 
populous cities and famous marts has not long 
to wait for traffic. It would pay from the very 
beginning. 

The first railroad in China was built for the 
transportation of coal from the Kaiping mines 
to the port of Taku. I was chiefly instrumental 
in securing its construction. The line, though in 



CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES. 201 

an out-of-the-way corner of the Empire, proved 
so profitable from the very start that it was soon 
extended to Tien Tsin and Peking in one direc- 
tion and to Shanhaikwan, the eastern terminus 
of the Great Wall, in the other. Not long ago it 
was thought advisable to build a branch beyond 
Shanhaikwan to the treaty port of Newchwang. 
This branch has been completed and will soon be 
opened to traffic. Minister Conger, in a recent 
letter to the State Department, says that the road 
now pays a dividend of 14 per cent, on the whole 
capital invested, and that when the entire line is 
open a dividend of 30 per cent, is expected. The 
era of railroad building in China may be said to 
have just dawned. China desires nothing better 
than to have Americans lend a hand in this great 
work. 

It gave me great pleasure two years ago to 
obtain for an American company a concession to 
build a railroad between Hankow, the great dis- 
tributing centre of Central China, and Canton, 
the great distributing centre of South China. 
The line is to connect with the Lu-Han line on 
the north and with the Kowloon line on the 
south, and throughout its whole length of more 
than 900 miles will run through opulent cities, 
fertile valleys and cultivated plains. The con- 
struction of such a line by Americans through 



202 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

the heart of China cannot fail to bring the people 
of the two countries into closer relations. 

Besides railroads, there are other public works 
which China must undertake sooner or later. 
Among them are river and harbor improve- 
ments, city water supplies, street lighting and 
street railways. Owing to the traditional friend- 
ship between the two countries, our people are 
well disposed toward Americans. They are will- 
ing to follow their lead in these new enterprises, 
where they might spurn the assistance of other 
people with whom they have been on less friendly 
terms in the past. 

Such being the economic interdependence of 
China and the United States, what policy should 
each country pursue toward the other in order 
to gain the greatest good from that relationship? 
In my judgment true reciprocity is impossible 
unless each country has perfect confidence in the 
other and displays on all occasions a desire for 
fair play and honest dealing. 

Now, reciprocity demands the '' open door.'' 
China long ago adopted that policy in her for- 
eign intercourse. She has treaty relations with 
all the European Powers, together with the 
United States, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Japan and 
Korea. All these are equally " favored nations" 
in every sense of the term. The Swede and the 



^ 



'&> €^ 



4 




Reproduced from Harper's Weekly 

LI HUNG CHANG 



CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES. 203 

Dane enjoy the same rights, privileges, immuni- 
ties and exemptions with respect to commerce, 
navigation, travel, and residence throughout the 
length and breadth of the Empire as are accorded 
to the Russian or the Englishman. Any favor 
that may be granted to Japan, for instance, at 
once inures to the benefit of the United States. 
Indeed, China in her treatment of strangers with- 
in her gates has in a great many respects gone 
even beyond what is required by international 
usage. According to the usual practice of 
nations, no country is expected to accord to for- 
eigners rights which are not enjoyed by its own 
subjects or citizens. But China has been so long 
accustomed to indemnify foreigners who have 
fallen victims to mob violence that she is looked 
upon in a sense as an insurer of the lives and 
property of all foreigners residing within her 
borders. To such an extent is this idea current 
among foreigners in China that some years ago 
an American missionary in the Province of 
Shan-tung, who happened to have some articles 
stolen from his house in the night, estimated his 
loss at $60, and actually sent the bill through the 
American Minister at Peking to the Foreign 
Office for payment. The Chinese tarifif also 
favors foreigners resident in China much more 
than it does the Chinese themselves. Most ar- 



204 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

tides imported for the use of foreigners are on 
the free list. Such is the treatment which 
Americans in common with the subjects and 
citizens of other foreign Powers receive in China. 
*: Justice would seem to demand equal consid- 
eration for the Chinese on the part of the United 
States. China does not ask for special favors. 
All she wants is enjoyment of the same privileges 
accorded other nationalities. Instead, she is 
singled out for discrimination and made the sub- 
ject of hostile legislation. Her door is wide open 
to the people of the United States, but their door 
is slammed in the face of her people. I am not 
so biased as to advocate any policy that might be 
detrimental to the best interests of the people of 
the United States. If they think it desirable to 
keep out the objectionable class of Chinese, by 
all means let them do so. Let them make their 
immigration laws as strict as possible, but let them 
be applicable to all foreigners. Would it not be 
fairer to exclude the illiterate and degenerate 
classes of all nations rather than to make an ar- 
bitrary ruling against the Chinese alone? Would 
it not be wiser to set up some specific test of fit- 
ness, such as ability to read intelligently the 
American Constitution? That would give the 
Chinese a chance along with the rest of the 
world, and yet effectually restrict their immi- 



CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES. 205 

gration. Such a law would be practically 
prohibitory as far as all except the best educated 
Chinese are concerned, for the reason that the 
written language of the Chinese is so entirely dif- 
ferent from the spoken tongue that few of the 
immigrants would be able to read with intelli- 
gence such a work as the American Constitution. 
Nevertheless, a law of that kind would be just in 
spirit and could not rouse resentment in the Chi- 
nese breast. 

Since the law and the treaty forbid the coming 
of Chinese laborers, I must do all I can to re- 
strict their immigration. I should, however, like 
to call attention to the fact that the Chinese Ex- 
clusion Act, as enforced, scarcely accomplishes 
the purpose for which it was passed. It aimed 
to provide for the exclusion of Chinese laborers 
only, while freely admitting all others. As a mat- 
ter of fact, the respectable merchant, who would 
be an irreproachable addition to the population 
of any country, has been frequently turned back, 
whereas the Chinese high-binders, the riffrafif and 
scum of the nation, fugitives from justice and 
adventurers of all types have too often effected 
an entrance without much difficulty. This is be- 
cause the American officials at the entrance ports 
are ignorant of Chinese character and dialects 
and cannnot always discriminate between the 



2o6 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

worthy and unworthy. Rascals succeed in de- 
ceiving them, while the respectable but guileless 
Chinese are often unjustly suspected, incon- 
veniently detained, or even sent back to China. 
A number of such cases have been brought to 
my attention. It must not be supposed, how- 
ever, that I blame any official. In view of 
their limited knowledge of Chinese affairs, it is 
not strange that the officials sometimes make 
mistakes. The Americans judge us wrongly, 
just as we often misjudge them. This un- 
pleasant state of things is to be deplored, and I 
would suggest that difficulties might be avoided, 
if the regular officials, in pasing on immigrant 
Chinamen, could have the assistance of Chinese 
consuls, or people fitted by training and expe- 
rience in China for the discharge of such duties. 
Great misunderstanding exists in the United 
States in regard to Chinese questions. There is 
a current fear that if all restrictions on Chinese 
immigration were removed, the United States 
would be flooded with my countrymen. Inas- 
much as China contains some 400,000,000 in- 
habitants, a wholesale emigration would certainly 
be a serious matter for the people of the country 
to which they removed. But there is no danger 
of such a calamity befalling the United States. 



CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES. 207 

Those who view it with alarm only show how 
profoundly ignorant they are of Chinese charac- 
ter. One of the most striking features of the 
conservatism of the Chinese is their absolute 
horror of travel, especially by sea. They regard 
any necessity for it as an unmitigated evil. They 
do not often visit neighboring towns, much less 
adjoining provinces or foreign countries. So 
pronounced is their prejudice against travel that 
until they could be educated into a different 
view, Chinese railroads would for the first few 
years have to depend for their profits on freight 
rates rather than passenger fares. To the Ameri- 
can or Englishman, who proceeds to go abroad 
as soon as he has accumulated a little money, 
their state of mind may seem incomprehensible, 
but it is nevertheless a fact that must be taken 
into account. 

How, then, is the presence of so many Chinese 
in America explained? By the fact that some 
forty years ago, when the Pacific Railway was 
building, there was great scarcity of laborers. 
Agents went to China and induced a consider- 
able number of Chinese to come to this country 
and assist in the construction of the railroad. 
After their work was done most of them returned 
home, taking their earnings with them. They 



2o8 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

told their relatives of the exceptional opportuni- 
ties for making money in this country, and they 
in turn decided to seek their fortunes here. Were 
it not for this circumstance there would be no 
more Chinese in this country than there are in 
Europe, where wages are also much higher than 
in China. As it is, all who are in the United 
States are from the Province of Canton and they 
come from two or three places only of that one 
province. 

It has been said that the rules of international 
intercourse as observed by Western nations 
among themselves are not applicable to inter- 
course with Eastern nations. True it is that the 
people of the East speak dififerent languages and 
have different customs, manners, religions, and 
ways of thinking from the people of the West. 
But the rule of contraries is by no means a safe 
guide through the intricacies of social observ- 
ances. By disregardig the common civilities 
of life, which are considered very important in 
China, and by assuming a lofty air of superiority, 
foreigners frequently make themselves unpopu- 
lar in China. Americans have the reputation 
there of being abrupt, English dictatorial. In 
recent years competition in trade with people of 
other nationalities has reduced their profits and 
forced them, for the sake of obtaining custom, to 



CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES. 209 

be more suave in their manners. Foreigners are 
sometimes guilty also of practising all sorts of 
tricks upon the unsuspecting natives. It should 
be remembered that the Chinese standard of 
business honesty is very high. The '' yea, yea" 
of a Chinese merchant is as good as gold. Not a 
scrap of paper is necessary to bind him to his 
word. Friendly feeling between the people of 
China and those of the United States would be 
greatly promoted if the Americans would always 
remember, in whatever dealings they may have 
with the Chinese, that '' Honesty is the best pol- 
icy." 

I believe that the Western nations want to treat 
the people of the Orient fairly. It is gratifying 
to see that Japan has been able to revise her ex- 
territorial treaties, and it speaks well for the fair- 
mindedness of England and other countries that 
they have thrown no obstacles in her way. I 
hope that the day will soon come when China 
may follow in her footsteps. 

In the meantime China observes with interest 
that the planting of the Stars and Stripes in the 
Philippine Islands will make the United States 
her neighbor in the future, as she has been her 
friend in the past. It is her earnest hope that the 
United States will make no attempt to bar 
Asiatics from her new shores, but that she will 



210 THE CRISIS IN . CHINA. 

seize this opportunity to strengthen friendly re- 
lations of mutual helpfulness between the two 
countries. No other nation has a stronger claim 
to the confidence of China than has the United 
States. The very first article of the first treaty 
concluded between the two nations provides that 
there shall be peace and friendship between them 
and between their people. Through a half cen- 
tury of intercourse no untoward circumstance 
has interrupted those amicable relations. More 
than once the United States Government has used 
its good offices to promote Chinese interests and 
welfare. Nations, like individuals, appreciate fa- 
vors, and, like them also, resent indignities. The 
sentiment of good will entertained by the govern- 
ment and people of Chinatoward the government 
and people of the United States is strong and pro- 
found because of the long, unblemished past, but 
underneath it all there is, I am sorry to say, a 
natural feeling of disappointment and irritation 
that the people of the United States deal now less 
liberally with the Chinese than with the rest of 
the world. If the best guarantee of friendship is 
self-interest, surely the friendship of a nation of 
400,000,000 people ought to be worth cultivat- 
ing. China does not ask for much. She has no 
thought of territorial aggrandizement, of self- 
glorification in any form. All she wants is gentle 



CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES. ^n 

peace, sweet friendship, helpful exchange of ben- 
efits, and the generous application of that Golden 
Rule which people of all nations and all creeds 
should delight to follow. 

Wu Ting-fang. 



AMERICA'S SHARE IN A PARTITION 
OF CHINA. 



AMERICA'S SHARE IN A PARTITION 
OF CHINA. 

In a previous number of this Review,^ I ven- 
tured to predict that the dissolution of the Chinese 
Empire was inevitable and not remote. Recent 
events have not diminished the probability of that 
disruption; and however reluctant each Power 
may be to begin the process, the anti-foreign 
sentiments of the Chinese masses, not less than 
the collapse of their government, will leave no 
practical alternative. The world will have to 
prevent anarchy in China, as well as to uphold 
the common interests of humanity and civiliza- 
tion. After proclaiming to the skies the super- 
excellence of the Open Door policy, the discovery 
will be made that the continued existence of a 
Chinese Empire is not necessary for its applica- 
tion, and that the states of the world can them- 
selves come to a mutual understanding without 



* North American Review for March, 1899, " The Dis- 
solution of the Chinese Empire." 



2i6 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

the intervention of Manchu Emperor or Tsungli- 
Yamen, to observe the common fiscal and com- 
mercial policy which is illustrated by the phrase 
of the '' open door." The case of Central Africa 
will be cited to justify the summoning of a con- 
ference for the division of spheres, and also for 
the proclamation of the principles by which the 
Powers will regulate their conduct and action for 
the general good. The adoption of this course 
may come at any moment; on the other hand, it 
is quite possible that an amelioration of the situa- 
tion in China may lead to its adjournment. But, 
whether imminent or deferred, it is the only 
course that will prevent China from falling under 
the exclusive domination of Russia, which would 
be the gravest menace for everybody. 

The practical question which the American 
public has to decide, and w^hich I wish to invest 
with some interest for American readers is, What 
will be America's share in a partition of China? 
I am quite aware that there is a preliminary ques- 
tion still nominally undecided, as to whether the 
United States should interest or at all events 
commit themselves in problems of government 
and conquest beyond the limits of their conti- 
nent. Very few American citizens are not asking 
themselves the question. Can we wisely, or even 
possibly, depart from the Monroe Doctrine so 







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a»l from Greenwich ISQ ^W^!^^.^\ \ LLPoMe.. N.Y. 



A FORECAST OF THE PARTITION OF CHINA 



AMERICA'S SHARE IN A PARTITION. 217 

as to include dependencies and conquests in the 
Republic? Even with regard to the Philippines, 
America's by the sword, where the task is not 
rendered more complicated and difficult by the 
interpolation of any outside claims or influences, 
as must be the case in China, no final, irrevocable 
decision has yet been taken toward laying the 
foundation stone of an American Colonial Em- 
pire. However reluctant the American people 
may be to take the plunge into the unknown, it 
seems to the onlooker that they have gone too 
far to draw back without loss of dignity and 
self-respect. They cannot make themselves a 
party to a hollow and ephemeral gift of autonomy 
to the Philippines, when they must know that 
their withdrawal would be at once followed by the 
enforcement of the German pretensions, which 
they only just anticipated two years ago. Com- 
mitted to the task of ending Spanish misrule 
in the Pacific, neither the timidity arising from 
inexperience in colonial administration, nor the 
engrossing pursuit of material prosperity under 
conditions which make the United States '' the 
spoilt child of Fortune'' among the nations, will 
allow them to take their hand from the plough 
till their work is done. Nor can it be supposed 
for a moment that the people of America will 
voluntarily decline to take a share in the arrange- 



2i8 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

ment of the affairs of China because it presents 
difficulties, and must entail responsibilities. The 
modifications introduced into the Monroe Doc- 
trine for the comparatively small local question 
of the Philippines will have to be enlarged or 
extended so far as to embrace the vast, compli- 
cated and pregnant problem of China. 

Evidence of these truths has already been 
afforded in the prominent part American diplo- 
macy took in obtaining general assent to the 
theory of the Open Door, which represents com- 
mon interest among all States that will prove far 
more durable than the Chinese Empire. The 
enforcement of this principle has to be provided 
for, not merely during the uncertain life of the 
existing Chinese administration, but also under 
the far more onerous conditions that will come 
into force when it has disappeared. Something 
far more definite and binding than the promises 
given to Mr. Conger will be needed to keep ambi- 
tious potentates and aggressive cabinets in the 
straight path of tolerance for others. The United 
States have made a formal and emphatic state- 
ment as to what they expect from other govern- 
ments. They have demanded unrestricted trade 
privileges and freedom, the whole of China is to 
be free from prohibitive duties, and all the Treaty 
Powers are to enjoy equal rights and the same 



AMERICA'S SHARE IN A PARTITION. 219 

tariff. The assent given to these demands, under 
one set of circumstances, is not to be ignored or 
put aside because new conditions have super- 
vened. But to keep it in force will require far 
more vigorous action than was expected when 
^^ the open door'' first became a popular phrase. 
It will not be enough for the United States 
Government to express a hope or a wish, to 
qualify its military preparations with a declara- 
tion that, in no eventuality, are they intended for 
war, or to leave England to bear alone the stress 
and heat of the day. The United States took an 
honorable lead in the process of arranging the 
Chinese question through Mr. Conger's despatch. 
They cannot back out of the whole business 
because events have moved with unexpected celer- 
ity, or because dark clouds appear on the political 
horizon. They must see the game out, whether 
it has to be played on the green cloth of diplomacy 
or " the ensanguined field of Mars." A regretful 
glance backward is permissible, but the Ameri- 
can people have crossed the Rubicon of imperial 
responsibility. 

Having done so, they must equip themselves 
so that they may meet these new obligations with 
a dignity and skill worthy of their name and 
power; and the point which I expressly wish to 
bring before them is that they should supplement 



220 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

the accepted theory of the Open Door with a 
policy that will take its place at the approaching 
critical moment, and that will second England's 
efforts to prevent Russia's obtaining the pre- 
ponderance in China. The Open Door theory 
possesses obvious recommendations, and it will 
continue to serve as a connecting bond between 
the governments when China has been broken 
into fragments. But its chances of future, prac- 
tical value depend on the acquisition by those 
who advocate it of adequate territorial jurisdic- 
tion, or rather of spheres of influence in the future 
partition of China. Unless this precautionary 
measure is taken, it may reasonably be feared that 
the Open Door theory will be exploded, to the loss 
and confusion of those who may have clung to it 
too long. Therefore, wisdom dictates that delib- 
erately and in good time each of the great Powers 
should indicate and claim what it considers would 
be its best sphere of influence and responsibility 
in a partition of China. The claim might not 
have to be enforced for a long time, if at all ; as 
the work to be accomplished in China should be 
rather of a constructive than a destructive char- 
acter. Each Power would accept the responsibility 
of maintaining order, security and freedom of 
trade, besides other treaty rights, within its 
sphere ; and, in the first place, there would be little 



AMERICA'S SHARE IN A PARTITION. 221 

or no interference with the existing Chinese 
administration or system of laws. Partition 
would not necessarily mean conquest, and it is 
probable that the Chinese themselves would 
create, with very little guidance or direction, ad- 
ministrations that would suffice for all practical 
purposes and render any conquest unnecessary. 
The work that has to be done in China is creative 
and restorative. A better feeling toward foreign- 
ers has to be evoked, and something like ordinary 
honesty and efficiency has to be restored to 
Chinese government. 

The task, even in its most restricted sense, is 
too big to be entrusted to any single State. There 
are, indeed, only two States which would seri- 
ously think of undertaking it with a general 
mandate, or in pursuit of their own separate 
ambitions. They are Russia and Japan; and to 
neither could the rest of the world safely entrust 
the disciplining of China's millions, and their 
absorption in the systems of those two aggressive 
Empires. England, but only with America's co- 
operation, might have the strength to bring the 
work to a successful ending for the common good, 
but she has not the will. Public opinion in Eng- 
land would regard as a madman the individual 
who would suggest adding the burden of a Chi- 
nese Empire to that already borne in India and 



222 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

South Africa. It will support a compromise, a 
postponement of responsibility in the Far East, 
as long as possible ; and, when it finds that a deci- 
sion must be taken, the widest range of its action 
will be within the sphere which has already been 
denoted as belonging to British interests. There 
is no want of sincerity in the timely decision to 
supplement the adhesion to the Open Door prin- 
ciple with the formation of a clear and definite 
plan to make the phrase a reality in the part of 
China which is essential to Pan-English trade. 
That plan has been adopted with greater vague- 
ness and uncertainty than the importance of the 
matter and the perils of the hour demand, but still 
with sufficient clearness so long as the heart of the 
Empire beats true. The Yang-tse Valley has 
been declared a British reservation, and the state- 
ment has received solemn indorsement by appear- 
ing in a Blue Book. As all the world knows, it 
does not depend on the official imprimature; its 
value is bound up in English naval superiority 

England is not the only Power that has defined, 
so far as words go, a sphere of influence. France 
has acted similarly in southern China, where, 
with greater precision but less power, she has 
laid claim to the provinces of Kwangsi, Kwei- 
chow and part, if not the whole, of Yunnan. It 
is unnecessary for the moment to inquire how 



AMERICA'S SHARE IN A PARTITION. 223 

far that claim violates the reversionary rights of 
India in the hinterland of Burmah. In the same 
way as France has done, Germany has announced 
that she regards the Province of Shan-tung as 
specially appertaining to her, and the theory of 
"the hinterland" is one that the countrymen 
of Prince Bismarck know how to work for all 
it is worth. The German appetite is so good that, 
in any partition of China, one province would 
scarcely suffice to satisfy it. Japan also, with one 
paw over on Corea, claims the Province of 
Fuhkien and its admirable port of Fuchow. Italy 
will not resign her hopes of Sanman Bay, Austria 
has still to be satisfied, and Belgium will claim 
a '' neutral'' port, or settlement perhaps, at Han- 
kow, as a mode of adjusting some future Anglo- 
Russian difference. All these Powers have more 
or less clearly announced their expectations that 
a certain piece of Tom Tiddler's ground is to fall 
to their share. Two States alone have held back 
from making any similar declarations, Russia and 
America, but from very different motives. Russia 
regards as her sphere the territory covered by her 
Cossacks, and the watchword of her extreme 
representatives is that the whole of China, and 
indeed of Asia, is to fall to her share. With such 
views, the definition of a sphere in any circum- 
scribed portion of China would be useless. 



224 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

America has not defined a sphere of influence 
or action, because she has not long approached 
the consideration of the subject with any serious 
intention of taking part in its settlement. Recent 
events have had much to do with any decision 
she may have formed or be in process of forming ; 
and, for a time, the belief in the Open Door 
panacea may have encouraged the hope that no 
more definite or committing step need be taken 
than to call upon the governments to subscribe to 
an admirable general principle. The extraordi- 
nary outbreak of animosity in China against all 
foreigners, accompanied by the collapse of the 
existing government, so far at least as the dis- 
charge of its responsible functions goes, has dis- 
pelled these expectations, and brings home to 
everybody the need of prompt and strenuous 
action. While it is tolerably clear what direction 
the plans of other Powers will take, over and 
beyond the assertion and enforcement of certain 
common rights and principles which none of them 
is yet disposed to see broken or destroyed in 
China, the plans of the United States are still 
shrouded in darkness, because they have not, as 
a matter of fact^ been formed. The time has 
arrived, however, when a decision cannot wisely 
be any longer deferred, because the area of un- 
appropriated, or rather unclaimed, sphere in 



AMERICA'S SHARE IN A PARTITION. 225 

China is rapidly diminishing and may soon dis- 
appear. Of course, there is no need for a decision 
if the United States are content to play the passive 
part of a mere looker-on in the settlement of the 
Chinese question, and to limit their diplomatic 
action to the enunciation of admirable platitudes. 
But they can only stultify themselves in China at 
the cost of future losses and even dangers ; for, in 
the evolution of the Chinese people is wrapped 
up the destinies of the human race. 

Taking the more natural view of what Ameri- 
ca's policy will have to be, and assuming that she, 
like other Powers, w411 have to supplement her 
support of the general principle of the Open Door 
with a claim to a definite sphere in China, the 
practical question follows. What and where is 
that sphere to be? The diminishing area avail- 
able renders a prompt decision necessary, for 
America may find herself supplanted by other 
contestants. Speaking practically, there are only 
two areas on the extensive seaboard of China left 
available that would suffice in themselves to meet 
America's claims and legitimate expectations. 
They are, first, the Province of Chekiang, with 
the ports of Ningpo and Hangchow, the famous 
Kincsay of Marco Polo ; and, secondly, the north- 
ern part of the Province of Kwangtung, with the 
port of Swatow, to which might be added, by 



226 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

arrangement with Japan, Amoy, across the fron- 
tier of Fuhkien. There would be some disadvan- 
tages in encroaching on a different province, and 
if America would accept the responsibility for 
Canton, there would be no necessity to claim 
Amoy, which would thus be left in the Japanese 
sphere. The opinion may be hazarded that the 
Province of Chekiang represents the preferable 
American sphere. It is more compact, and the 
immediate responsibilities would not be such as 
to deter or discourage American administrators 
on the threshold of their task. Canton itself repre- 
sents the most difficult separate problem in China, 
because it is a focus of anti-foreign animosity 
and of perhaps the greatest ruffianism in the 
whole country. The Power accepting responsi- 
bility of the Kwangtung Province will, sooner or 
later, have to deal with it. 

When the question as to what America's sphere 
in China should be first presented itself to my 
mind, the most attractive form seemed to be a 
joint Anglo-American sphere, because it could 
have embraced a larger part of China, and thus 
present a national form of government south of 
the Yellow River (Hwang-ho). But America 
has held back too long, and opinion is too much 
divided in the States to render such a project 
practicable. The enormously preponderant inter- 



« 
AMERICA'S SHARE IN A PARTITION. 227 

ests of England in China render it impossible 
for her to delay her measures for the convenience 
of any one else, or to subordinate her policy to 
the movements and intentions of any other Power. 
An Anglo-American sphere would be an ideal 
arrangement; but, unfortunately, American opin- 
ion is not sufficiently pronounced at this moment 
to render it practicable. We must, therefore, fall 
back on the separate sphere for America, which, 
practically speaking, can only be established in 
two quarters. The first step in the claim of a 
sphere is easy and surprisingly simple. The 
United States Government, like the German, the 
Japanese, the French and the English Govern- 
ments before it, makes the announcement that it 
regards, let me say, the Province of Chekiang 
as its sphere. The statement is duly noted. No- 
body protests, nobody applauds, yet on Time's 
iron tablets every one knows that an important 
notch has been made. America will then have 
left the benches to enter the arena. 

Having denoted the sphere, America becomes 
an active partner with the other Powers in the 
regulation of the Chinese question, and she com- 
mits herself to the specific task of doing what 
good government, security of life and trade de- 
mand in her sphere. How it is to be done is 
a question for the future and also for each gov- 



228 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

ernment to settle according to its own lights. The 
preliminary stage of study and investigation will 
probably prove one of many years, and in some 
of the spheres active intervention, in any other 
form than advice and possibly admonition, would 
never become necessary. A partition of China in 
the manner indicated does not necessarily imply 
its conquest. It signifies, primarily, the easier 
treatment of a vast subject, by its subdivision 
among a number of interested parties or States. 
It also signifies for the rest of the world that no 
single State shall be permitted to develop and 
utilize the latent strength and resources of China 
for its own purposes and policy. The policy of 
partition among spheres of interest and, if neces- 
sary, of action may be described as one of precau- 
tion and vigilance. By directly interesting the 
great body of the Powers in the work, a policy of 
assurance may be considered to have been taken 
out against the undue aggrandizement of any one 
of them. When the governments announce that 
they are directly interested in what happens or 
has to be done at one spot, they will watch more 
closely what is being done at other spots, lest it 
should encroach on their rights or prove the har- 
binger of peril to the common interest and weal. 
It is a partition of interest, interference and con- 
trol to which the world is being invited in China, 



AMERICA'S SHARE IN A PARTITION. 229 

and not of conquest. The present events, however 
they turn out, must prove fatal to the existing 
Chinese Government. The period of hoodwinking 
by the TsungH-Yamen must be ended, as well as 
that of irresponsibility among the officials with 
whom we have to conduct business. Whether the 
Chinese authority be an Emperor or a Viceroy, 
it must be clear, first, that he understands the 
rights of those who are in treaty relations with 
his country and possess formally conceded privi- 
leges ; and, secondly, that he has the power as well 
as the will to perform his part of the transaction. 
He may pity the ill-starred and well-meaning 
young Emperor, Kwang-hsu, but we cannot 
safely regard him as the dens ex maehind who is 
to save the situation. And if Kwang-hsu is not 
possible, then it may reasonably be doubted 
whether any other member of the present ruling 
Manchu family would be eligible. For it cannot 
be overlooked that the present outbreak has been 
mainly due to the Manchu element in the govern- 
ment, and to the bitter and implacable hostility 
of the princes of the reigning House. It almost 
looks as if the Tartans, believing their supremacy 
to be menaced between the demands of the foreign 
Powers and the propagandum of the native Chi- 
nese Reform Movement, had decided to enter 
upon a life and death struggle with the foreign 



230 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

devils, in the hope of expelling them forever and 
thus saving their own position. To entertain 
such a scheme reveals no doubt extreme igno- 
rance, but all the available evidence before the 
Boxer outbreak pointed to the conclusion that 
nothing had been learnt at Peking; and those in 
diplomatic relations with the Chinese reported, 
after Li Hung Chang's return from Europe, that 
both he and the Dowager Empress had become 
more reactionary than ever. Among the princes, 
ministers and diplomatists of the existing rotten 
regime in China there are none capable of form- 
ing a new, sound administration. They are more 
than incapable; they are not even willing. 

Whatever chance of internal reform there may 
be in China must be sought for in a different 
direction, and new men can alone supply the 
material out of which a reformed administration 
can be constructed. That such men are to be 
found cannot be doubted; and the example of 
Kang-yu-wei is encouraging for those who believe 
that, amid the chaos of Chinese affairs, and the 
catastrophes still aw^aiting the ancient system of 
their race, the Chinese will themselves be able, 
with some external assistance and direction, to 
restore order in their own household in, say, the 
next half century. They have the old Confucian 
dictum that " after long union must come dis- 



AMERICA'S SHARE IN A PARTITION. 231 

union, and after that again will be reunion," 
and they know that seven centuries have elapsed 
since the Middle Kingdom was divided between 
the Lungs and the Kins, and that before them 
the subdivision of the country into several king- 
doms was no uncommon feature in its history. 
The fact that daunts foreigners in prescribing for 
the Sick Man of the Far East, viz., that he may go 
to pieces under treatment, has no terrors for a 
Chinese reformer, who knows that the provinces 
could be grouped into kingdoms, and that any 
amelioration of the situation must first be local 
and progressive before it becomes general and 
national. If thoughtful and instructed Chinese 
were taken as counsellors by the foreigners in 
each of the spheres, their advice would be to inter- 
fere as little as possible with the fabric of the 
existing administration, and indeed to restrict all 
interference at first to restraining the corruption 
of the officials, controlling the revenue and expen- 
diture, and softening the cruel penal code. These 
changes would be so popular that little or no 
coercion would be needed to give them effect. The 
direct responsibility incurred by the partitioning 
Powers would be far less than is thought, and the 
task that seems so formidable at a distance might, 
on closer inspection, prove exceedingly light. 
That it is a task for the good of the world cannot 



2Z2 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

be doubted, and it is equally certain that sooner 
or later the Powers will have to take it in hand. 
What is not so certain, for the moment, is whether 
the United States will lend a hand in the work, or 
stand aloof. ^ 

This uncertainty brings us back to the question 
with which we started, " Where and what Ameri- 
ca's share in a partition of China is to be." A 
decision on the question cannot be safely deferred. 
The area left open is diminishing, the number 
of competitors is increasing, and those who face 
the responsibility before all the Treaty Powers in 
China will not show any consideration for those 
who shirk it, when the rewards have to be divided. 
The responsibility is not adequately faced by 
declarations in support of an Open Door, when 
the mansion behind it is in flames. The period 
when Mr. Conger's despatch was the feature of 
the question is quite recent in point of time, but 
it is already ancient history. A momentous deci- 
sion has to be taken, and that within a brief 
period, as to whether America will participate in 
the imminent disruption of the Chinese Empire. 
Her standing out will not prevent the contingency, 
which may be pronounced inevitable; but it will 
somewhat alter the form in which the problem 
will present itself for solution. It will be a form 
more unfavorable and more onerous for England, 



AMERICA'S SHARE IN A PARTITION. 233 

the champion of the Open Door under all circum- 
stances, and the abstention of the United States 
will encourage not only Russia, but France and 
Germany also, to make their spheres exclusive to 
outside trade and special reserves for their own. 
ThQ consequences of this shrinking from honor- 
able responsibility at the psychological moment 
for action must be felt by America herself, not 
so much, perhaps, in the immediate present as in 
the future; but I will not obscure the fact that 
it must also prove very injurious to England, 
who is in special need at this moment of moral 
support and backing. She has to face the open 
rivalry of Russia, the secret rancor of France and 
the very questionable good faith of Germany. 
The alliance of Japan alone is not sufficient to 
enable her to successfully confront so formidable 
a coalition, based on a common sentiment of jeal- 
ousy and dislike. Only the hearty co-operation 
of America can adjust the balance, and warm the 
chilled friendship of Germany into something 
like community of action. 

The partition of China, which recent events 
have rendered practically certain, is not as for- 
midable a contingency as has been imagined, 
provided that America agrees to take her legiti- 
mate share in it. Far from precipitating the 
arrival of Armageddon, as some alarmists affect 



234 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

to believe, it would tend to peace, because separate 
ambitions have to be subordinated to the general 
opinions and wishes of the Powers. America's 
abstention would alter the outlook, and the Conti- 
nental Powers would combine to squeeze Eng- 
land, when war would inevitably follow for the 
maintenance of her Empire. If she were beaten 
by numbers, that dire event would signify the 
door more firmly closed than ever in China, and 
the United States would be the next mark of an 
anti-English league. If she were victorious, there 
would still remain on the debit side the cost and 
sacrifices of an unnecessarily colossal struggle, 
due to the abstention of America, with the conse- 
quent alienation of two great, kindred nations, 
which acting together might control and improve 
the destinies of the world. 

I hope I have made it clear that the partition 
policy in China does not imply conquest. It would 
be an acceptance of responsibility, and each part- 
ner would agree to do a certain portion of work. 
The governments having agreed among them- 
selves that the only practical way of dealing with 
the Chinese problem is to subdivide it into 
certain parts for each of them to perform, would 
in the next place hold a conference for the enu- 
meration and acceptance of common principles of 
action, and for the division of the responsibilities 



AMERICA'S SHARE IN A PARTITION. 235 

of the defunct Chinese Empire. The assets would, 
fortunately, be amply sufficient to discharge them, 
and to leave a good margin for the future. Proof 
of this may be found in the extraordinary develop- 
ment of trade during the last two years, despite 
the reactionary policy of the Empress Dowager 
and her advisers. The first decisions formed 
would no doubt be tentative and experimental, 
and the permanence of any arrangements made 
would very largely depend on the amount of 
co-operation received from Chinese reformers. 
But it would be made clear to everybody that the 
Powers had formed the resolution to treat the 
Chinese question as a common interest, and to 
take timely steps to prevent the Yellow Peril from 
becoming a menace to them all. The work in 
which America is asked to take her share is a 
highly honorable one, and from the human point 
of view of the deepest interest. She can only 
refuse her co-operation by taking a lower seat in 
the family of nations, who will see in her absten- 
tion the selfish indulgence of her good fortune 
in possessing a position of splendid isolation. 
. Demetrius C. Boulger. 



AMERICA'S INTERESTS IN CHINA. 



AMERICA'S INTERESTS IN CHINA. 

In order that the present crisis in China may 
be properly understood, and that our real stake — 
the commercial and diplomatic interests of the 
United States — in that far-away region may be 
properly considered, a glance at the country, the 
people and the government seems to be necessary. 

Fortunately, China has long since ceased to be 
a land of mystery. From the days of Marco Polo 
and Ibn Batuta its innermost recesses have been 
known to the world. In later years it has been 
more fully explored in all directions by Jesuits, 
missionaries and scientific travellers. Its limits, 
its physical conformation and its climate have 
been described with sufficient accuracy. Its min- 
eral resources, which are of great variety and vast 
extent, but almost entirely undeveloped, have 
aroused the interest and excited the cupidity of 
foreign promoters and financiers. Full details 
and particulars can be had from the cyclopaedias 
on all these points, but a more specific reference 



240 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

to the area and population of the Empire will 
perhaps serve better than anything else to arrest 
the attention of this country and its statesmen to 
the enormous importance oithe events which are 
now taking place in the Far East. 

China proper and exterior China, including the 
eighteen densely populated provinces and the sur- 
rounding desert region, constitute what is known 
as the Chinese Empire. It extends from the 
Pacific Ocean, where it has a coast line of about 
2,500 miles, to Central Asia, and covers an area 
of something over 5,000,000 square miles, or 
nearly one-tenth of the habitable globe. Its popu- 
lation has never been accurately enumerated, but 
it has been estimated variously from a fifth to 
a third of all the people in the world ! There may 
be anywhere from three hundred to four hundred 
millions. One guess is as good as another, but 
the latter has the endorsement of Sir Robert 
Hart, Commissioner of the Imperial Maritime 
Customs, and may be considered the more trust- 
worthy. 

The average condition of these people, as con- 
trasted with those of Western nations, is one of 
great poverty, though it would be a mistake to 
assume that they are peculiarly miserable and 
unhappy, except at times in the region of famine, 
which, from climatic conditions, frequently pre- 



AMERICA'S INTERESTS IN CHINA. 241 

vails, and, owing to great distances and the lack 
of railroad transportation, can hardly ever be 
relieved or mitigated. Living almost entirely by 
agriculture and the accessory callings, the Chinese 
contribute but little per capita to international 
commerce. They are a remarkably homogeneous, 
docile, industrious and robust people, frugal and 
kindly in their habits, with no indications of ever 
having been aggressive and warlike in temper. 
Belonging to the Turanian race, it is becoming 
the fashion to designate them as the '' Yellow 
Peril,'* and to conjure up harrowing visions of 
a devastated and ruined world when they shall 
learn their powder and sally forth for rapine and 
conquest. More than one Eur opean writ^r^. .and 
notably Professor Pearson, have predicte d that 
they will yet dominate the earth by force of arms 
or ruin it by competition in commerce. Without 
recounting the arguments upon which this opin- 
ion is based, it is here sufficient to state that, so 
far as history show^s, the Chinese race are about 
as much of a menace to the rest of the world as 
the lamb in the fable was to the wolf. 

Obviously, this " Peril," be it great or small, 
may be dismissed for the present with the sugges- 
tion that, if the Chinese cannot defend themselves 
from a few thousand Japanese '' wojen" (or 
dwarfs), a still smaller number of Russians, or 



242 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

a couple of German cruisers, they can hardly hope 
for several generations to be able to menace 
seriously the rest of the world as conquerors. 
When it is further considered that they have but 
little surplus capital and few if any of the appli- 
ances of modern civilization, and have yet to 
supply themselves altogether with railroads, roll- 
ing mills, furnaces and factories, and to develop 
their mines of coal, iron, copper, lead and precious 
metals, before they can seriously think of satisfy- 
ing their own demands for manufactured goods, 
wares, and merchandise^ much less of entering 
into active competition with other nations, prac- 
tical statesmen may well dismiss these apprehen- 
sions for the present. Yet China is awakening 
from the lethargy of ages, and is joining slowly 
but certainly in the march of modern progress. 
It must not be forgotten, however, that while she 
is moving her great exemplars will advance still 
further. Her ancient and complete isolation, 
which has hitherto kept her stagnant in the back- 
ground, and which w^as primarily due to the wide 
expanse of desert, steppe and mountains separat- 
ing her from the civilized world on the land side 
and to an almost illimitable waste of waters on 
the ocean side, was first broken seriously in upon 
by the big ships of modern days. The approach 
and early completion of the Trans-Siberian rail- 



AMERICA'S INTERESTS IN CHINA. 243 

road to Vladivostok, Port Arthur, and ultimately 
to Peking, the construction of trunk railway 
connections along the principal trade routes of 
the interior and the multiplication of the great 
steamship lines which already connect her ports 
with all parts of the world, will surely at no dis- 
tant day open her innermost recesses to the trade 
and influence of the more progressive nations. 

It cannot be too frequently repeated that the 
peculiarities of civilization and government and 
the extraordinary conservatism of the Chinese 
are mainly due to that isolation which has re- 
mained unbroken from the beginning of time to 
within less than a half century, but fortunately 
may now be regarded as quite at an end forever. 

If human experience is of any value, or has 
any application to this case, nothing can be more 
certain than that the Chinese must ultimately 
move as all other races and nations have moved. 
They have similar wants, similar affections and 
similar interests, and must gratify them by means 
similar to those employed by other peoples. And 
so it may be safely assumed that when they do 
seriously set about the task of bettering their 
condition and improving their civilization and 
government, they will proceed much as other 
people have proceeded. Their efforts will be 
followed by success and failures in the usual pro- 



244 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

portions. They will have the usual amount of 
bright anticipations and bitter disappointments; 
the usual proportion of great men and small ones, 
and possibly an unusual proportion of dishonest 
men and scoundrels ; but withal, they are sure, if 
left alone, and possibly if not left alone, by out- 
siders, to progress both in the arts of peace and 
in the arts of war, and to grow in wealth and 
power. 

Manifestly, the new economic changes which 
we may count upon with absolute confidence will 
be such as grow out of the construction of rail- 
roads, the opening of mines, and the erection of 
furnaces, rolling mills, factories and shipyards, 
and generally the better employment of labor; 
wages will rise, the scale of living and expenditure 
will improve, which in turn will create a demand 
for better food, better clothing, better furniture 
and better houses. When the extent of the coun- 
try and the almost infinite number of the people 
are considered, together with the enormous 
amount of work to be done in order to bring them 
abreast of even the poorest people of Europe and 
America in respect to the facilities and comforts 
of civilized life and to the means of national 
defence, it will be apparent that they will not only 
have all they can do at home for the next half- 
century at least, and possibly even for the entire 



AMERICA'S INTERESTS IN CHINA. 245 

century or longer, but also will be compelled to 
borrow heavily and to buy largely from foreign 
nations of the things which they cannot yet nor 
soon produce. Of course if they buy they will 
have to pay, which they can do only in the 
precious metals, and in the products which now 
constitute their principal articles of commerce. 

The isolation and conservatism of the Chinese 
had their counterpart with the Japanese, the his- 
tory of whose extraordinary progress is now fully 
known to the world, and need not be dwelt upon 
here. While it is not to be denied that the circum- 
stances which surrounded Japan were different 
from those which surround China, it may be 
fairly claimed that the difference was one of 
extent rather than of character. The awakening 
must come and progress must follow in one case 
as surely as it did in the other; but inasmuch as 
the area of the Chinese Empire is twenty-five 
times as great, and its population probably ten 
times that of the Japanese dominions, the aggre- 
gate contributions of the former to the progressive 
forces and movements of the age, when once fully 
developed, must be many times greater than any 
that have ever yet made themselves felt in the 
Asiatic world. Hence it will be perceived that 
the territorial possessions and commercial prizes 
to be struggled for by the great Powers are of 



246 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

supreme value, and well calculated not only to 
arouse their cupidity and stimulate their enter- 
prise, but to dull their consciences as well. 

When it is remembered that British and Rus- 
sian conquest in Asia has already resulted in the 
division of all of that continent, except Turkey in 
the West, and China in the East, between the 
conquerors; that France has helped herself to 
Tonquin, Cochin China and part of Siam, and is 
now seeking to further extend both her absolute 
sway and commercial influence; that Germany 
has, under a flimsy pretext, seized Kiao Chou 
Bay and forced the Chinese Government to give 
her a long *' lease of sovereignty" on the mainland 
and adjacent waters; that the Chinese bufifer 
states and outlying dependencies of vast extent 
have been seized one after another, and above all 
that no conquered territory anywhere in Asia, 
except that which was held for a while by Russia 
about Kuldja in the far northwest of Chinese 
Tartary, has been relinquished to its rightful 
owner by any European power during this cen- 
tury, the Chinese Boards and ministers may well 
feel profoundly alarmed at the " glaring beasts'' 
which now seem to threaten their country with 
dismemberment and destruction. 

It is true that their government is a govern- 
ment of conquest and corruption, the history of 



AMERICA'S INTERESTS IN CHINA. 247 

which is for the most part the history of violence, 
intrigue and anarchy, with only here and there 
a great ruler to stay the hand of plunder and to 
save the country from absolute ruin. The reign- 
ing dynasty is effete and incompetent, the boards 
of government are cumbersome and inefficient 
and the leading men generally weak or powerless. 
But these are misfortunes inherited from a past 
age. They call for reform and regeneration, 
which may be had with the assistance and advice 
of foreign nations rather than by spoliation and 
dismemberment. 

And yet it must not be forgotten that China 
has made substantial progress for the last fifty 
years, especially since the capture of the Taku 
forts and Peking by the allied French and British 
armies in 1861, and the termination of the 
Taiping rebellion in 1863. The most potential 
influence in this movement has been the deter- 
mination of the Powers to open China to the trade 
of the world, and it is to be noted that in enforc- 
ing this determination they have never hesitated 
to invoke all the resources of war as well as those 
of diplomacy. Up to 1834 the English, through 
the East India Company, had a virtual monopoly 
of the China trade, and the individual merchant, 
no matter what was his nationality, had but a 
poor chance. Trade was at first closely supervised 



248 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

by government and Company agents, but gradu- 
ally outgrew their control. Outside merchants, 
especially Americans, forced their way into it, 
and this made trouble, which was followed by 
treaties and trade regulations. The English 
insisted upon having better facilities, and upon 
trading where they pleased, freely and without 
annoying restrictions, and especially upon the 
right to engage in the introduction and sale of 
opium, to the great injury, as the Chinese officials 
believed, of those who consumed it. The Chinese 
authorities resisted, and this led to the Opium 
War, followed soon after by the '' Lorcha" War, 
in both of which they suffered great loss, humilia- 
tion and defeat, and were finally compelled not 
only to legalize the opium trade, and pay their 
assailants a heavy subsidy in money, but in addi- 
tion to limit themselves to the collection of an 
ad valorem duty of only five per cent, in silver 
on all goods imported from foreign countries. 
A few years later the allied French and English 
forces captured the Taku forts, and marched by 
Tien Tsin and Tungchow to the imperial capital, 
drove the Court across the borders, looted and 
destroyed the Summer Palace, levied tribute 
sufficient to pay the entire expenses of the war, 
and again showed the helpless Chinese that it 



AMERICA'S INTERESTS IN CHINA. 249 

was impossible for them to stand up against the 
'' Foreign Devils.'' 

During all these operations the diplomatic 
representatives of the United States, although 
always claiming their right under the doctrine of 
co-operation to share in the concessions made 
to their colleagues, maintained an attitude of 
neutrality, or sought by an independent show of 
friendship to gain some special advantages for 
our own country, while our naval commander 
looked on with complacency, till overcome by the 
thought that '' Blood is thicker than water," when 
he set to work to rescue the British sailors, whose 
boats had been sunk by Chinese shot. It must 
be confessed that the conduct of our representa- 
tives throughout that period was rather that of 
the jackal than of the lion, and must have been 
extremely puzzling to the Chinese officials. 

But when it comes to the action of individuals, 
the story is much more creditable to Americans. 
Our missionaries, after the earlier Jesuits, were 
almost the first in that wide field. They were 
generally men of great piety and learning, like 
Morrison, Brown, Martin and Williams, and did 
all in their power as genuine men of God to show 
the heathen that the stranger was not necessarily 
a public enemy, but might be an evangel of a 



250 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

higher and better civiHzation. These men and 
their co-laborers have estabHshed hospitals, 
schools and colleges in various cities and prov- 
inces of the Empire, which are everywhere recog- 
nized by intelligent Chinamen as centres of 
unmitigated blessing to the people. Millions of 
dollars have been spent in this beneficent work, 
and the result is slowly but surely spreading the 
conviction that foreign arts and sciences are 
superior to '' fung shuey" and native supersti- 
tion. 

So, too, the Americans have been leaders in 
commerce, and in fair and honest dealing with 
the Chinese. One of the oldest and most suc- 
cessful foreign houses ever founded in China was 
that of Russell & Company, which planted agen- 
cies in all the chief maritime cities, estabHshed 
steamboat lines on the principal rivers, and for 
nearly three-quarters of a century was known 
throughout the world for its enterprise and its 
widespread commercial transactions. Many 
other American houses of the highest character 
and scarcely less distinction have been planted in 
the open cities from Canton to Newchwang, 
until now it may be said that American products 
and manufactured goods are known throughout 
the Empire for their excellent quality, and that 
the value and extent of the commerce controlled 



AMERICA'S INTERESTS IN CHINA. 251 

by Americans aje second only to that of Great 
Britain. 

Americans have exerted extraordinary influ- 
ence in another field, and at a time of vital im- 
portance to the reigning dynasty and its govern- 
ment. The Taiping rebellion, which ended in 
1863, after incredible damage and devastation, 
was started and carried forward against the Man- 
chus upon the idea of '' China for the Chinese." 
It was based upon a sort of Mormon Christian- 
ity, and seemed in a fair way of overrunning the 
entire country till it was met by '' the ever vic- 
torious army," organized and commanded by an 
American sailor named Ward. According to all 
disinterested accounts, this extraordinary man 
displayed genius and power of the highest order. 
Operating under the sanction of the Chinese 
Generalissimo, Li Hung Chang, he gathered a 
force of Chinamen, not exceeding five thousand 
in all, whom he armed with foreign rifles, placed 
under foreign officers, and led in person against 
the rebels for two years of unbroken victory. 
Death alone at the head of his command put an 
end to his career. He was succeeded in turn by 
Burgevine, Forrester, and Gordon, two Ameri- 
cans and one EngHshman, but neither of them 
changed the organization nor added to its invin- 
cible efficiency. Gordon, who finally laid down 



252 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

his life for Great Britain at Khartoum, it is true, 
rendered valuable services; but he was an erratic 
and uncertain man, and it is now generally ad- 
mitted that had it not been for the work of Ward 
the rebellion would have been successful and the 
Manchu dynasty would have been expelled. The 
Chinese recognize the extraordinary character 
and influence of Ward's services at this critical 
epoch by the posthumous honors bestowed upon 
his memory, and by the stories of his courageous 
deeds which have spread broadcast among the 
people to the remotest corners of the Empire. 

It was the good fortune of another American 
to point out the defenseless condition of China, 
her lack of an adequate army, the absence of a 
general staff and of a system of military transport 
and administration nearly ten years before the 
Japanese invasion which ended in the utter hu- 
miliation of the Empire and has become the 
fruitful source of all the foreign troubles which 
now encompass it. How much greater the 
humiliation, and how much heavier the indem- 
nity would have been but for the sagacious coun- 
sel of a distinguished American statesman whom 
the Chinese had called in to assist them in their 
negotiations for peace must remain for the pres- 
ent a matter of conjecture, although it is certain 
that the Japanese greatly moderated their de- 



AMERICA'S INTERESTS IN CHINA. 253 

mands in both money and territorial concessions 
after their terms were first submitted. 

Other Americans in private Hfe, as well as our 
able minister, charge d'aif aires, and consuls in 
China, have done much for the last twelve years, 
each in his proper sphere, to extend and 
strengthen the influence of the American name, 
till now it is safe to say that no power on earth 
stands so well or, independent of force, is so 
highly respected by the Chinese. In their aspira- 
tions for better government, and in their desire 
for railroads and the other appliances of a better 
civilization, there is every reason to believe that 
but for the intrigues and jealousies of the Brit- 
ish, French, German and Russian diplomatists, 
promoters and agents for the last decade, and 
especially since the close of the war with Japan, 
Americans would have been selected as experts 
to conduct and advise in all public works, and to 
furnish locomotives, rails, cars, machinery and 
all sorts of supplies. No one knows better than 
the Chinese officials that the United States has 
no desire to despoil their country of its territorial 
possessions, nor to limit the sovereignty and in- 
dependence of the Chinese Government in any 
direction. But, unfortunately, the Chinese are 
like the rest of mankind, prone to withhold 
favors from their friends in order to placate the 



254 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

enemies against whom they cannot defend them- 
selves. 

It has been suggested that perhaps the great 
Powers have no intention of further dismember- 
ing the Chinese Empire, or of permanently oc- 
cupying its territory and seaports, and this may 
be true. Nobody not in their confidence can be 
'certain as to what may be their real policy and 
intentions, but it is an indisputable fact that so 
far no European Power which has ever gained a 
footing in China has permanently' e^ voluntarily 
relinquished it. It is certainly fair, therefore, to 
assume that they intend to hold on to what they 
have taken, and even to take more, as oppor- 
tunity offers. Russia cannot well help herself, 
for it seems to be the fate of a higher civilization 
and a stronger governmenj; to encroach upon a 
lower civilization and a weaker government 
whenever they come in close contact or have co- 
terminous boundaries. Great Britain asserts au- 
thoritatively that she has no purpose of occupy- 
ing Chinese territory or Chinese seaports, but 
that she intends merely to see that others do not, 
and that whatever privileges or extensions one 
Power obtains shall be for the equal benefit of 
all. This is altruism on an imperial scale, and it 
must be confessed that of later years she has been 
fairly true to her free-trade principles, even in 



AMERICA'S INTERESTS IN CHINA. 255 

Asia, in her policy concerning ordinary com- 
merce. But surely the United States would make 
a serious mistake if they should trust Great Brit- 
ain or any other Power to give their citizens a 
fair or even chance at any great business, such as 
assisting in the reorganization of government, or 
as contracting for railroads or for any other pub- 
lic works or supplies within the limits of con- 
quered or annexed territory. 

But on the general proposition as laid down 
by Mr. Balfour in his late Manchester speech, 
and later by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, it is not to 
be denied that our interests are with our ancient 
antagonist, England, and for the first time 
against those of our ancient allies, France and 
Russia. How far we should go in an independent 
efifort, or by open co-operation, or by an alliance 
expressed or implied, for safeguarding or ex- 
tending these interests, is a matter for careful 
consideration. 

As for France, her policy can hardly be in 
doubt. As before stated, she has seized and now 
holds the whole of Cochin China, Tonquin, 
Anam, and a great part of Siam, and is credited 
with the purpose of raising her flag over Hainan 
at the first opportunity, and all this has been 
without a shadow of honest title. So far, her 
acts are simply acts of spoliation. Her statesmen 



256 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

and public journals make no disguise of their 
purpose to participate in what they euphemis- 
tically call the exploitation of China, and if a 
writer in a late number of the Revue de Deux 
Mondes can be credited with speaking the national 
sentiment, they will seek to draw their alliance 
closer with Russia for that purpose. The danger 
is that wath the latter dominating at Peking and 
pressing forward from the north, the Japanese 
on the eastern coast and France in the south, 
each eager to get a share of the spoils, and each 
distrusting the other. Great Britain, in spite of 
her benevolent declarations, may be compelled 
to abandon her good intentions and advance 
both from the frontier of Burmah in the west 
and from her base at Hong-Kong in the south- 
east to protect her vast commercial interests as 
well as to restrain the rapacity of rivals. 

Notwithstanding the seizure of Kiao Chou 
Bay, the declarations of the Emperor in his speech 
at Kiel, the despatch of Prince Henry with rein- 
forcements, and the later intelligence that the 
Chinese have conceded a lease of sovereignty 
over the bay and adjoining district, it is hardly 
possible that Germany is to be considered as a 
serious factor in the Chinese question. It is true 
that she is credited with having actively co-op- 
erated with Russia and France in breaking the 



AMERICA'S INTERESTS IN CHINA. 257 

victorious grasp of the Japanese after the close of 
the late war, and that she has not, up to a late 
date, received any adequate reward for her ser- 
vices. It is also true that she has been most ac- 
tive for some years in pushing her commercial 
interests in both Japan and China, but inasmuch 
as she has no colonial dependencies anywhere in 
the Far East, and cannot yet be reckoned as a 
first-class naval power, it is difficult to perceive 
how she can hope to play any great part either 
in the regeneration of China or in her dismem- 
berment, if unhappily that should be her fate. In 
considering Germany's part in the game, it may 
help to uilderstand her position if it is remem- 
bered that after the close of the Franco-Prussian 
war she succeeded in getting a call to assist in 
organizing military schools and in drilling the 
Chinese troops for the Viceroy Li Hung Chang; 
but the utter rout of the Chinese forces and the 
collapse of the Chinese military administration, 
in the efifort to resist the Japanese invasion, was 
a great setback to German pretensions, and in 
the eyes of the Chinese an absolute '' loss of face" 
to them. 

If it should turn out, however, that there is to 
be no further dismemberment of China, and no 
concert of the Powers for that purpose, but 
merely a general scramble for influence, contracts 



258 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

and trade, the base at Kiao Chou may serve the 
Germans a useful purpose, especially after it is 
connected with Peking and the other interior 
cities by rail. For the present it is badly situated 
for anything but a naval depot and rendezvous. 

In considering the Far Eastern question great 
embarrassment has been met with for lack of 
exact information as to the real purposes of the 
Powers. Collectively it is nearly certain that they 
have entered into no agreement and have no 
concerted policy for dismemberment or spolia- 
tion. It is known that Japan was permitted to 
go into the war with China without allies. The 
Powers, one and all, kept their hands off both 
belligerents. The United States alone tried to 
keep the peace, to protect Japanese subjects 
in China, and as opportunity offered to act as an 
intermediary after war had begun. When it 
was over and the terms of peace were agreed 
upon, Russia, supported by France and Ger- 
many, intervened to limit the Japanese occupa- 
tion and finally to assist China in raising the 
money with which to pay the first instalment of 
the war indemnity, after Great Britain had been 
asked and declined to do it. But here all cer- 
tainty ceases. There have been rumors from 
time to time, more or less circumstantial, of 
understandings between Russia and Japan, Rus- 



AMERICA'S INTERESTS IN CHINA. 259 

sia and France, and last between Great Britain 
and Japan. And, strange as it may seem, it has 
even been reported that Lord Salisbury has in- 
structed the British Ambassador to sound the 
government at Washington as to the feasibility 
of a mutual understanding for the maintenance 
of China's autonomy. Finally, it is reported that 
the money for the last instalment of the Japanese 
war indemnity has been ofifered by the British 
Government as the best means of restoring her 
lost prestige and strengthening the Chinese Gov- 
ernment, that this has brought the Russian Gov- 
ernment forward with new offers of assistance, 
and that the government at Peking is again re- 
sorting to the old game of playing one European 
Power against the other. 

If all this proves but little as to the real plans 
and purposes of the Powers, it makes it certain 
that the Far Eastern question has reached an 
acute stage, full of danger for China as well as 
for all who really desire to see her saved from 
destruction and made strong enough to main- 
tain her right of national existence against the 
world. 

In any aspect of the case the interest of the 
United States in it cannot be regarded with in- 
difference. Being, as they are, China's nearest 
neighbor across the sea, and the only one of the 



26o THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

great Powers which has absolutely no plans hos- 
tile to the peace, integrity and general welfare of 
the Chinese people, they must look with the deep- 
est apprehension upon the events taking place 
in that quarter. They cannot afiford to be mis- 
taken as to the plans of the other Powers, nor to 
depend upon even the most benevolent of them 
for their proper share of the commerce now in 
existence, and which is sure to increase rapidly 
hereafter if China is permitted to work out her 
own salvation with her possessions intact and her 
autonomy unimpaired. 

In considering the question of duty to our 
neighbors, and to our own great interests, it may 
be fairly assumed that the government at Wash- 
ington will not forget that our territory not only 
abuts upon the sea abreast of China for two 
thousand miles, and almost encloses the whole of 
the North Pacific in the wide sweep of its shores 
and islands, but that our people, having prac- 
tically occupied the whole of their own vacant 
land, and exploited all its resources except 
those of its forests and mines, must necessarily 
turn their attention more and more to the com- 
merce of the Pacific islands and of the countries 
beyond. To this end the annexation of Hawaii, 
which is freely offered to us as a naval station 
and a half-way house, would seem to be fully 



AMERICA'S INTERESTS IN CHINA. 261 

justified. When it is remembered in addition 
that tlie extraordinary resources of the country 
tributary to Puget Sound and Columbia River in 
timber, and to Portland and San Francisco in 
wheat and fruits, are sure to make those regions 
and their seaports the seat and centre of a great 
and ever-increasing commerce with the trans- 
Pacific countries, the importance of maintaining 
unbroken relations and extending our commerce 
with the latter can hardly be exaggerated. It is 
not to be denied that the American people have 
many questions of national and international im- 
portance to consider, and that hitherto scarcely a 
doubt has arisen as to the wisdom of confining 
their diplomacy to the cultivation of peaceful re- 
lations with all nations, entangling alliances with 
none; but it is conceivable that circumstances 
may arise even in Asia, and a time may come 
when it will be the duty of our government not 
only to exert its own powers to their utmost, but, 
if need be, to accept even the co-operation of 
Great Britain if it can be obtained on proper 
terms, for the maintenance of our common in- 
terests beyond the Pacific. 

James Harrison Wilson. 



THE AMERICAN POLICY IN CHINA. 



THE AMERICAN POLICY IN CHINA. 

When Mr. Choate wrote to Lord Salisbury to 
ask British concurrence in a proposed line of 
policy in China, he stated that : 

" The President has strong reason to believe that the 
governments of both Russia and Germany will co-operate 
in such an understanding as is here proposed.'' 

It is not quite clear what that understanding 
was. The passage of the despatch which imme- 
diately preceded that which I have quoted began 
with a most important statement as to American 
policy in China. This was followed by an ex- 
pression of a desire for support in the effort to 
obtain, from each of the Powers claiming spheres 
of influence, a declaration in favor of an inter- 
national policy of the " open door," as contrasted 
with a selfish policy of preference for " nationals'' 
— that is, subjects or citizens. At the moment of 
writing I have not seen the actual text of the 
Russian and German replies. I hear from those 



266 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

who have read them that the German answer is 
satisfactory but general, and the Russian 
guarded and far from clear. What I do not 
know is how far any of the Powers have re- 
sponded to what appears to me to be the gist of 
the American despatch, instead of confining their 
reply to the proposed declaration as to the 
'' open door." 

A more pregnant but less obvious portion of 
the American policy revealed in the despatches 
which began to be written in September lies in 
the expressed hesitation of the government of the 
United States to '' recognize" '' the exclusive 
rights" of any Power within any part of the Chi- 
nese Empire, and its acceptance, as the policy 
ultimately in view and now to be '' hastened," of 
" united action of the Powers at Peking to pro- 
mote administrative reforms, so greatly needed 
for strengthening the Imperial Government and 
maintaining the integrity of China in which it" 
("my government") ''believes the whole West- 
ern world is alike concerned." 

This is a far more important pronouncement 
than anything which merely concerns the " open 
door." It has attracted less attention than the 
proposed declarations of disinterestedness. It is 
not, however, novel as an expression of policy by 
distinguished Americans, though it has never 



THE AMERICAN POLICY IN CHINA. 267 

previously been so frankly adopted as a national 
policy by the President and Secretary of State 
and Ambassadors of the Republic. In 1867 the 
same policy was proclaimed by an American, 
Mr. Anson Burlingame, at one time a Senator, 
at another time American Minister in China, and 
ultimately first Chinese Ambassador to Europe, 
who came to us with a legation composed of rep- 
resentatives of all the Powers, serving with the 
consent of their various countries. Mr. Burling- 
ame's policy was exactly that now adopted on 
behalf of the United States. It was preached by 
him with the leave of the United States Govern- 
ment, which at one time he represented, and 
whose service he left for that of China, in which 
he shortly died. The policy was a wise one when 
taught by Mr. Burlingame in London in 1868; 
it was premature. The question that must now 
be asked with regard to it is not whether it is 
wise, for we shall agree upon that score, but 
whether the United States '' mean business" 
about it, and are prepared to push it with their 
great influence — an influence to which the recep- 
tion of their despatches testifies, if indeed testi- 
mony were needed. 

It ought to be a portion of the policy, if that 
policy be seriously intended, that the United 
States should be strongly represented in China. 



268 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

At Peking there must be a Minister of high au- 
thority who will take the lead in pressing the en- 
lightened and trading views of our governments 
and of the Powers who will concur with them, 
and, on the coast, a commodore who will use the 
naval power of the United States, in conjunction 
with the British admiral on the station, in sup- 
pressing piracy and lawlessness on the West 
River, the Yang-tse and other inland waters 
where British trade and the trade of the United 
States are, and in an increasing degree will be, 
done. The United States are now showing their 
power, as a manufacturing and exporting nation, 
to hold their own in markets far more distant 
from their shores than those of China. Rivals 
we must be in trade; but w^e have, both of us, 
everything to gain by making ours a friendly 
rivalry, and by co-operating in maintaining order 
throughout China, and in asking, as a return, for 
the regularization of inland duties and for the 
extension of the Imperial Customs system to 
financial matters which are at present outside its 
control. 

We must recognize the fact that, although 
other countries may yield to the views put for- 
ward by the United States and supported by our- 
selves, they are not friendly to them. There was 
a most interesting debate in the French Chamber 



THE AMERICAN POLICY IN CHINA. 269 

on the 27th of March, in which several of the 
leading speakers discussed the colonial policy 
of France and Germany, making as it were com- 
mon cause with Germany in the matter, and ex- 
plaining that it is a policy which is intended to 
enable Europe to face the future development of 
the United States. The speakers pointed out (to 
use the words of M. Raiberti, the Radical Deputy 
of Nice) that England has under her sceptre a 
world; that Russia has absorbed all northern 
Asia; that, in face of what the British and Rus- 
sian Powers and the United States already are, 
France and Germany are forced to establish 
themselves outside Europe, and '' to be extra- 
European if they are to live." 

" The old nations of Europe feel that its worn-out frame 
has no longer the strength to carry their future. They 
cross the frontiers of Europe and go to new continents to 
search for life. The European Powers with limited popula- 
tion and territory are threatened with extinction or with 
lapse into the position of States of the second order, when 
considered in comparison with such extraordinary agglom- 
erations as the United States, if they do not themselves 
constitute outside of Europe their empires of the future. 
The only means to create an equilibrium with the United 
States and with Greater Britain is to create a Greater 
France and a Greater Germany." 

We in the United Kingdom do not seek to be 
alone or to be first in China as a whole, or even 



270 THE CRISIS IN CHINA. 

in the Yang-tse Valley. Some English speakers 
have, for party reasons, asserted that we have 
obtained a separate and individual control of the 
Yang-tse Valley, which in fact has not been 
granted to us, and w^hich the majority of our 
statesmen and of our people do not desire. What 
they wash is that the vast population of that re- 
gion, doing already a large trade with foreign 
countries, and likely to do a rapidly increasing 
trade with them in the future, shall be accessible 
to the enterprise of the world. We know that 
w^e shall have in that territory the growing com- 
petition of the United States and that of Ger- 
many, possibly also that of Japan, but we are 
content to take our chance, and are content also 
to let America, if she chooses, take the lead, or 
act equally with us, in insisting that the future of 
these territories shall not be marred by piracy, 
brigandage and rapacious inland taxation. The 
aims of Russia in the north, of Germany in one 
Chinese province at least, and of France in the 
south, are different; but the action of the United 
States, which has virtually arrested for the mo- 
ment the selfish action on the part of France and 
Germany, will, if continued, be strong enough, in 
conjunction with our own, to check for good the 
process of disintegration and of division which 
had commenced. 



THE AMERICAN POLICY IN CHINA. 271 

Let no American hater of militarism fear that 
this language points to alliance in view of war. 
The government of the United States is not 
asked by the British Government to pull chest- 
nuts out of the fire for us, or to offend Russian 
customers for our benefit. The impulse on this 
occasion has come from Washington, and our 
Foreign Office, though unable to resist the 
national feeling here, is not enthusiastic about 
the American new departure which our people 
welcome. In the debate of the 9th of June last, 
the Under Secretary for Foreign Afifairs declared 
that the United States were hostile to a policy of 
concert of the Powers at Peking in favor of re- 
form. We have advanced since that day, for the 
policy which Mr. Broderick told us was repu- 
diated is now avowed as the aim of the Republic. 
Resolutely keep the lead in the policy of reform; 
give an earnest of your desire for co-operation by 
offering to assist in the complete opening of the 
rivers to the trade of the world, and rest assured 
that, with less risk to peace than a policy of ab- 
stention involves, American action will be 
crowned with a full measure of success. 

Charles W. Dilke. 



LEJa'lO 



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